Occasionally, I look out into the world and feel a sense of deep responsibility. There is so much need; so much hurt. Is there nothing I can do? If there were, where would I start?

Count the wounded places in the world. Children without bread; women murdered, defiled and traded like cattle; disease and injury, war and rage, shame and pain, greed and gluttony, pleasure and complacency.

Pick one and spend a lifetime. Choose two, and despair at need beyond imagination. Take all of them together and quietly retreat from the face of the impossible.

And yet this truth remains: God so loved the world that He gave his only son… What excuse do we have for not loving the world? What excuse do we have, when faced with the impossible, for not doing what is possible?

Pick one–children without bread–do what is possible. Pick two, and do what is possible. Take each of them–all of them–and do what is possible. Choose companions; ask what is possible and do what we can.

Choose neither purpose nor companions and give up, go to sleep.