By World Saver, I mean those of us who feel the weight of the world’s brokenness on our shoulders and feel obligated to heal it.
Maybe being bred in a laboratory of hope is a bit of an overstatement. However, for years I have felt obligated to save the world if possible and if not, at least leave the world better than when I was born. Cure cancer, find a vaccine for HIV, equalize the world food disparities, microlend to women in developing nations, there are so many worthy causes.
As I mentioned above, I am not the only person who feels this way.
--snip--
I moved to Los Angeles after college to work in HIV Prevention as part of an Americorps program. I worked with homeless youth, went into schools to teach kids about safe sex and tested over 250 people for HIV. World Saver.
But, from where does this urge to save the world arise? For me, it is a combination of my white privilege/guilt and religious idealism. I was raised upper-middle-class in white suburbia. I received an amazing education at a public high school. I never had need of anything. I got a car and cell phone when I turned 16. When I would try to get a job, my parents always told me that my job was to do well in school and that they would take care of everything else. I had no idea how lucky I was. But, perhaps that’s because most people around me were having a similar experience.
Obviously, the rest of us who are far busier raising our families, trying to make ends meet, recognize the necessity for moral compromise in a world that really doesn't care one way or another about us - we aren't world savers.
Except, we are. Parents are world savers. We are the most hopeful folk in the world, raising our children to work hard, to believe they can achieve their goals, have a life like ours, or perhaps even better than our own. We work hard to make sure the world around us - in our own little neck of the woods, as it were - is a little better than it might be. We care for our neighbors, ask after them. We help them when they need it. Even in the cul-de-sac in which we live, we are attentive to one another, keep an eye out when houses are empty at vacation time, watch out for one anothers' kids, dog sit on weekends away.
Trying to make the world a better place doesn't have to involve all that the author of this piece says. Sometimes, making the world a better place begins at home. Our world has far too much brokenness for any one person to fix, or even one group to fix. Sometimes, all we need to do is look up and down the street, and see what we can do to make one anothers' lives a little better.
