Downstream

It's a cold sunny day in early spring. I'm standing on the muddy shore of a creek, swollen with melted snow. I've brought my class here, this spring day, to teach a lesson.

"All right, everyone, gather close." They gather round. Each child is holding a stick.

"Are you all ready? " They hold their sticks up high, and you can see each of them has written their names carefully on their sticks with black marker. "Here we go!" I cry, and they all toss their sticks out into the water. They cheer as they watch them bob out into the current and float away. As they gain speed, the children run along the shore to follow. One child sidles over and slips her hand in mine shyly. "Do you think it will get to the sea?" "It might," I nod. "Or maybe it will end up on shore and someone will find it." "A girl like me?, she wonders aloud. "No, a dog!" shouts a boy. "He'll chew it up!" "He will not!" the little girl stamps her foot; "Or maybe a beaver will find it and it will be the perfect stick to finish its dam," I break in hastily. "Come on, everyone, it's almost time for lunch." And off we go, with a few backward looks and waves.

For the class it was a the closing of a simple geography lesson: this swollen creek meets a larger river, then another, then the Mississippi River, and on, finally, to the sea. Their stick may end up bobbing in the waves of the ocean, or even land on another continent, to be picked up by a child, even. We'll never know.

Thinking about that day so long ago, I smile and shake my head. If they were older and able to grasp the bigger picture, there was so much more I'd have liked to share with them - about how our actions touch others in ways we will never know.

We are sending our selves downstream every day, I think. We're tossing our words and our deeds out into the water to touch other lives. The things we say, the things we buy, the choices we make every day - they don't just disappear - they touch the world. For good or ill, we make a difference.

Imagine a river, and a stick you hold in your hand. Think of the stick as your life today - the things you'll do and say. This one day, and how you'll touch the world just by living.

You can do so much good in small ways. The friendly words to the checkout clerk who might have been having a bad day. The meal you cooked for someone with cancer. The adopted pet happily sleeping near you. The get well card opened with trembling hands that brought comfort to someone. All of those small things make the world a kinder place.

And when we take action: when we vote or sign a petition, send a letter, change how we live and what we buy - every act, small as they seem, adds up; our choices, multiplied by others, can shift the weight of the world toward justice and peace.

So heft that stick in your hand, your name boldly written, and heave it out into rushing water. Watch it bob and float away, farther and farther, until the bend in the river takes it out of sight. Today, every day, offer your best to the world.

Who knows where it will end?