I was reading Blue Like Jazz by Donal Miller a while back, and something in this book has really stuck with me since then. I borrowed the book from someone, who had borrowed it from someone else, who got it from who knows where. But there on page 20 is a 4 word sentence that is highlighted (the only highlighting I saw in the book). The sentence says, "I am the problem." Everyone (including me) loves to blame someone else for their problems, and few people take responsibility for their actions and yet here in this book is the statement, "I am the problem." We create unions, so we can blame management, we are activists so we can blame other people for environmental, social and political problems. We fire people because we blame them for the organizations problems. We blame the government for everything. We love to blame.However, it does no good for me to protest something or blame someone if I am doing nothing to make the situation better. Miller puts it this way: "...it did me no good to protest America's responsibility in global poverty when I wasn't even giving money to my church, which has a terrific homeless ministry." I think (like Miller) that instead of being activists we should all realize that "...true change, true life-giving, God-honoring change would have to start with the individual." We can't change the world before we change ourselves. So...instead of joining the activists in protesting global problems, I think we should all start by joining activists and their protests with our own sandwich board signs that read, "I AM THE PROBLEM." Let's see what happens.
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