I have long understood that the current place of residence has influenced my worldview. And when you live in the ghetto as long as I lived there, it will not only give you a unique perspective on things, but it will also change the way you think. It's easy for us to pick up a newspaper and read about violence, and then put the paper aside. But it will not be so easy to postpone it if you live where I live. You can't turn the page when you walk down the street and witness fights and gunfights, as will happen to me. I've already experienced twenty-one murders in my life. When violence is so close to you, it changes your thinking. It makes you think differently about what ministry is and how it should be.
All this helps me to see behind the simple newspaper headlines the real life of people on both sides of violence. Most of them will never appear in the church for various reasons, some of them more obvious, others less so. And although they may not be the kind of people for whom we would postpone our affairs, but they are real living people, and someone needs to go to them. But can one person make a difference?
In Numbers the 16th chapter, the children of Israel complained again. It's just become a way of life for them. Whatever God did, the children of Israel didn't like it. They didn't like water. They didn't like the food. The children of Israel did not like the leadership. They didn't like much at all. People were no longer just complaining about Moses and Aaron, things were moving towards a revolution. The children of Israel were not happy that Moses and Aaron were trying to help them become more spiritual. People didn't want it. They didn't want to change.
Moses and Aaron tried to help the children of Israel draw closer to God, but the people of Israel were very reluctant to do so. And this led to the fact that people's attempts to rebel grew and grew. In the end, everyone likes to do what they want. This does not appear to us as some new revelation. But the conflict grew, and the children of Israel tried to overthrow their leaders. Imagine: Moses and Aaron are trying to lead people to God, and two million Jews are saying, “No way! We won't change!" This is not good for Moses and Aaron.
This is where God begins to speak. As I understand it, God simply said, “Okay! You don't like your leaders. You don't like what I gave you. No problem, I'll just destroy you all." And this is one side of God that I really like. Do you know why? God is patient. He endures and continues to endure until His patience comes to an end.
Imagine with me again. Before you is Moses, Aaron and several million Jews. What happens next is very difficult to explain: suddenly a wave of death begins to roll over the crowd. People are dropping dead and the amount of dead bodies is amazing. If you study this case, you will see that fourteen thousand seven hundred people died then. And you know what's sad? For most people who read this story in the Book of Numbers, it's just a Bible statistic, another Bible story. But don't let that be a statistic for you. Fourteen thousand seven hundred children of Israel fell dead. And they didn't get up again. But if you don’t associate it with anything, it’s not so easy for it to become something more than a simple statistic in your life.
When it comes to death, I have a lot to remember. As already mentioned, I witnessed twenty-one murders in New York - the place where I decided to live. And when you're as close to killing as I am, seeing a man's head explode into pieces from a shot from a gun, your way of thinking changes completely. This is exactly what happens! when you allow yourself to the reality of life. It changes you. That's why I still live in a warehouse in the ghetto. Not because I have no other choice. Namely because I decided so. But can one person make a difference?
I was invited to speak at the Southern Baptist Bible Conference in Florida. This is a very memorable conference for me because of a question one of the pastors asked me after my talk. The pastor challenged me with his question. He asked me, “Do you really think or believe that one person can make a difference in what we call Christianity? Or are they just words that people like you, people like us, like to say to get us to do something?”
We all say that one person can make a difference, these are good words to preach. They sound good in bible school and conference. Good Christian words. But do we really believe what we say? That's what the preacher asked me. I didn't give him a pleasant answer. I told him: "I don't know..." That was my answer, but taking his question very seriously, I added that I would like to think about it. “I will answer your question, but I need time. It is so serious that it deserves some thought. But I will answer you." His question led me to study what happened to Moses and Aaron (see: Numbers 16).
The children of Israel complained. Whatever God did, the children of Israel didn't like it. They didn't like water. They didn't like the food. The children of Israel did not like the leadership. And now people were falling to the ground dead. This is where the story takes an unexpected turn. Moses turns to Aaron and yells, "Aaron, do something!" Moses asks Aaron to do something because he has never faced such a situation. What do you do when people drop dead?
Realize that Moses and Aaron were pretty close to what was going on. This could not but affect them. And it required some kind of reaction from them. Moses told Aaron to do something. "Run to the altar, do something!" Something urgently needed to be done. It was this that made Aaron run and grab the censer. If you are familiar with the structure of the tabernacle, then you know that the censer is like a bowl. Aaron grabs the censer and runs to the altar. He draws some fire from the altar into the censer. Then Aaron rushes into the thick of the people, carrying a censer, but I'm sure he doesn't even know what he's going to do. Aaron was obedient to Moses' command to do something. Here is what the Bible says:
He stood between the dead and the living, and the defeat ceased.
Numbers 16:48
It's all said in the forty-eighth verse. Aaron stood between the living and the dead. Where he stood, death ceased. Are you following my thought?
The question a Baptist pastor asked me was, "Do you really think one person can make a difference?" And what do you think? In this story, even the average reader will have to agree that Aaron made a difference. One man made a change, but what did he have to do? Aaron had to run to the altar, take the fire, and then he had to go into the crowd. And he just went, didn't he?
So, if one person can change something, and it becomes obvious to us from just this small passage that this is possible, then what kind of person should this person be?
Let's take a closer look at Aaron. When I began to study this story, I noticed that Aaron and the fire were the only thing that stood between the living and the dead. Only Aaron and fire. It wasn't something that the denominations came up with. The parishioners did not participate, and there was not even a committee there. One person made a move. And it's not just a biblical story about a man or woman who brought change. In such situations, something happens to the personality, and this personality becomes the conductor of everything that follows. This person is making a difference.
In our ministry, we visit every child every week, which means we make over twenty thousand personal visits. It is difficult to write about this, because it seems that you are lying. People ask us, "How can you visit twenty thousand children a week?" Like this. And what we do is physical service. It takes a lot of physical effort - visits, street Sunday Schools, bus service, camps, "Celebration of Hope" and work support to keep it all going. But we just do it and keep doing it.
And more importantly, we have relationships. We don't just knock on doors, we build relationships with people. We have a lot of diligent employees who make their own changes. Employees such as two young girls who attend a street Sunday School neighborhood in the South Bronx. It's a very difficult area, but they just do it.
In one of the families on their route there was a seven-year-old girl and her younger brother, five or six years old. The children were not mentally retarded, they just needed more time to develop. They were good kids who came to Sunday School regularly. They came there every week.
However, one day the children did not come, and our employees became worried. A few days later, the girls went to check on the children, make sure they were all right, and invite them to the next Sunday School service. They went to the door and knocked. They kept knocking, but no one answered. It was strange because the staff could hear the TV working, but no one opened it for them.
Our employees have developed a good relationship with this family, and due to the condition of the children, the mother was always at home. The girls knocked on the next door, thinking that perhaps the neighbors knew what was going on, but they could not help in any way, could not answer their questions. So our co-workers came back and started knocking on doors again. Nobody answered. This time, however, the girls noticed a strange smell coming from the apartment. When no one in the building could help our employees, they called the police.
Each police department in New York has a special department called OSS (E511) - Emergency Service Department. It was this police department that came on call. The chief officer decided to break the doors. You may have seen the tool that the police use to break down doors. The police were breaking down the doors, and our employees were waiting to make sure the children were all right.
When the police coped with the door and entered the apartment, they saw that my mother was lying on the floor in the room. Her throat has been slit and she's been dead for a week. That is why there was such a smell coming from the apartment. The children were also in the room. The girl and her younger brother were sitting on the couch watching TV. They ate everything they could find in the house.
Our employees sat down with the children on the sofa. A seven-year-old girl held a cardboard box in her hand and tore it into small pieces. The kids ate the box - that's all they had.
I wasn't there that day. The only people who made a difference were two young girls who, like Aaron, just did something. They visited children in the South Bronx who no one else cared about. But you will not see our young employees on the covers of magazines. Nobody invites them to participate in TV programs. The employees of our ministry are not material for magazines, and no one invites them to television. And besides, one of these employees has a speech impediment, and the other is very poor. But on that day, these two girls literally stood between the living and the dead, and they changed something. The most ordinary people, the most ordinary employees. No special titles, just the most ordinary employees. Just loyal people who were worried about the fate of these children.
As I continued to study what Aaron was like, I saw something that I did not understand at all. Do you know how old Aaron was when all this happened? Aaron was a hundred years old. What did Moses say to him? Run to the altar?! A man who is already a hundred years old, run to the altar? But it's simply impossible! You can't do this, Aaron. Your time has already expired. This is impossible. But guess what happened? He did it.
True, it's amazing what you can do from what, it would seem, you cannot do? All the time you hear: “No, I can’t do this.” Of course you can, you just don't want to.
People don't expect me to drive the bus and meet the kids after all these years, but I do. “You shouldn't do this,” they say. - You're the senior pastor. You can't even drive a bus." I know it. But going to do it now and do it next week. I will continue to drive the bus. Do you want to know how I do it? One day I ran up to the altar and took a fire there. I just went there. It wasn't that hard. I have been doing this for over thirty years, and I think that something is changing.
Think about how my mom left me alone on the sidewalk and never came back for me again. Think of how a passing man, a Christian, stopped and took me with him. He fed me. On the same day, he paid for my stay at the youth camp, and there I was saved. Can one person change something? Someone did it for me.
A woman who couldn't even speak English came to the rescue in one of our adult meetings. After the service, she came up to me and said through an interpreter, "I want to do something for God." I didn't even know what to say to her. I knew that the language barrier would be a problem for a Puerto Rican woman, as our employees must be able to communicate with everyone. Therefore, he asked her to simply love children. “We have a lot of buses,” I told her. “Just take different routes and love the kids.” She accepted my offer.
What the woman didn't tell us at the time was that a week before she started working on the buses, she asked someone to teach her how to say "I love you" and "Jesus loves you" in English. That's all she could say. So, she got into the front seats of the bus and found kids who looked worse than others. She sat this child on her lap and whispered, “I love you. Jesus Loves You” all the way to Sunday School and back home. That's all she could say, all she could do. But when someone told her to go and do something, she, like Aaron, did it. In her own way, in her simple way, she loved children, and so it went on week after week. In the early fall, she told our bus ministry leaders that she didn't want to change buses anymore. She found one bus for herself that she wanted to keep working on. There was a little boy on that bus that this woman from Puerto Rico wanted to hang out with. She wanted to devote all her attention to this boy.
The boy was about three years old. He was thin and dirty. He never said a word. Somehow one of our employees found this child. He was told about Sunday School and how to get on the bus. And he came. Brothers and sisters or neighbor friends did not come with this baby. He himself came to the bus. Every Saturday he sat on the steps in front of his house and waited for the Sunday School bus to pick him up.
And every time he got on the bus, this woman from Puerto Rico greeted him. She took the baby in her arms and repeated to him again and again: “I love you. Jesus love you". She repeated those words to him all the way to Sunday School. She did the same on the way home. Week after week, week after week. It was all she could do, but she did it with amazing fidelity.
Weeks turned into months, and the process did not change. The Puerto Rican woman would not stop pouring out her love for this boy, constantly repeating, “I love you. Jesus love you". About two weeks before Christmas the situation changed. As before, the boy got on the bus and received the love and attention of a woman who wanted to do something for God. Together they went to Sunday School. And after Sunday School, they got on the bus to go home. On the way home, the woman sat the boy on her lap. "I love you," she told him, "Jesus loves you." When the bus pulled up to his house, the boy did not run out of the bus as usual. This time he turned around before leaving. And for the first time he tried to speak in front of us. He looked at the Puerto Rican woman, who wanted to do something for God, and said, "Yyy..I ttt.l love you too..lu..blue." Then the little boy gave a big hug to the woman who had taken such good care of him. It was at 2:30 pm on a Saturday.
That same evening, around 6:30 pm, the dead body of this boy was found at the fire exit of his house. The day one of our co-workers had a breakthrough with a boy, his mother killed him. She beat him to death, put the body in a trash bag and threw it away.
In what we call Christianity, there are not enough qualified people, but each of us has his own field, right? I'm not the smartest person, and I don't pretend to be. I am not the best author or minister. But I can drive a bus. And thanks to the fact that others have joined me, I think that we are changing something.
Today I believe that there is a boy in Heaven because of a woman who did not speak English but who had a strong desire to do something for God. I believe that one woman who took the time to hold a dirty little child in her arms and tell him that she loves him and that Jesus loves him changed something in that boy's eternity. And no one can convince me otherwise.
A Baptist pastor asked me, "Do you think one person can make a difference?"
Yes, I really believe that one person can make a difference. And what do you think? When all is said and done, it is important that you and I remember that somewhere out there today, now there is another child who is not doing well in life. There is another child sitting on the sidewalk somewhere today. And all it takes is just one person to make a difference in these kids' lives.
Personally, I believe that it is impossible to abstract from society, being a man, that is, a biosocial being. This was said by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself. One way or another, we are all born already in society. We are also dying in society. We have no choice, everything is already predetermined before our birth, before our ability to choose. But in the hands of everyone - his future and, possibly, the future of the people around him.
So can one single person change society?
Personally, I believe that nothing is impossible, that absolutely anyone can achieve something, and then control the masses, thereby deforming society, the social system. But if you are very poor, unknown, uneducated, then it will be very difficult for you to change anything without making great efforts. Thinking over the question of this essay, I immediately remembered several works of art in which the problem of the relationship between man and society is raised.
So, the protagonist of the work "Fathers and Sons" by Turgenev, Yevgeny Bazarov, is a vivid example of a person who goes against society, against the established foundations in this very society.
As his comrade Arkady said: "He is a nihilist." This means that Bazarov rejects everything, that is, he is a skeptic. Despite this, he is unable to come up with something new. Eugene is one of those people who only criticize, attract more and more people to their views, but without any specific, alternative ideas and views. Thus, as we see throughout the novel, Bazarov only argues with the older generation, without saying anything specific in return. His business is to deny, and others will “build”. As we see in this example, Bazarov fails to change society - he dies at the end of the novel. Personally, I think that the main character was ahead of his time, was born when no one was ready for change.
In addition, let us recall the novel "Crime and Punishment" by F. M. Dostoevsky. The protagonist of this work, Rodion Raskolnikov, develops his own theory about "trembling creatures" and "having the right." According to her, all people in the world are divided into "lower" and "higher". The former can be killed by the latter without any consequences or punishment. The protagonist cannot be 100% convinced of it, which is why he decides to check it on his own. He kills the old pawnbroker, thinking that everyone will only get better from this. As a result, for a long time after the murder of the hero, mental anguish and conscience torment him, after which Rodion confesses to the crime he has committed and receives his second punishment. In this example, we see how the main character had his own idea, a theory that did not spread among people and died in the head of its creator. Rodion could not overcome even himself, so he could not change society in any way.
Discussing the problem of this essay, I came to the conclusion that one person can in no way change the whole society. And the given examples from the literature helped me in this.
Updated: 2017-10-25
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Final essay Grade 11 Completed by: Ermakov Nikita
Direction: "Man and Society".
Topic: "Can one person change society?".
Can one person change society? I often think about this question and recall the statements from the lessons of social science: “You cannot live in society and be free from society.” I fully agree with this expression. Every person, personality is born and enters this world in order to make this world a little better. Society is also people who can either support any of us or not perceive us. I believe that one person cannot change the world. Confirmation of my thought can be found in fiction.
Let us turn to the novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". The main character of this work is Evgeny Bazarov. He is a new man, a man of his time. Bazarov and his few associates call themselves nihilists (from the Latinnihil-nothing). Together with his student Arkady, he arrives at the Kirsanovs' parental estate. Here Bazarov meets the older generation of this family: Arkady's father Nikolai Kirsanov and Arkady's uncle Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov. From the very first meeting, the reader understands that a conflict is brewing between the characters. During their communication, we see constant clashes between the old and the new generation. The characters often argue on various topics. They express their opinion about the role of the outgoing aristocracy, argue about the nihilists, show their attitude towards the people and towards art. Representatives of the older generation, the Kirsanovs, are defending their position, which has been established for centuries, while Bazarov and Arkady stand up for changing Russia through decisive measures, perhaps even through a revolution. But time arranges everything in its own way. Rejecting love, Bazarov falls in love with Anna Sergeevna Odintsova. But she refused his feelings. Disappointed in his life, work and love, Yevgeny Bazarov goes to his parents' house and dies after a while. He could not change the world for the better, although ideas and thoughts deserve attention to some extent. Perhaps because he was lonely, far from the people, and did not have a clear program of action.
Another example of confirmation of my thought can be given. One of the main characters of the epic novel by L.N. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" Andrei Bolkonsky is also burdened by society. Rotating in the highest circles of society, he is forced to attend various evenings. He is young, handsome, received a decent education and upbringing for his time. He is a true patriot. During the war, he does not sit out in "warm places." Andrei is torn on the battlefield, as he is a real warrior. When we meet him for the first time in Anna Pavlovna Sherer's salon, we notice his absent-minded gaze and wandering smile. It is immediately clear that he feels himself superfluous in this society. He rejects this society and does not accept it. The day will come, and he will find the strength to escape from it. Andrei Bolkonsky failed to change society, but this image makes us feel respect for trying to change the world for the better.
Thus, after analyzing the episodes from these works, I came to the conclusion that one person is not able to change society. I think, despite this, there have always been, are and will be people who will strive to change the world for the better. Be that as it may, life moves forward thanks to such people, but before you can change the world for the better, you need to change yourself. After all, it was not in vain that the famous American writer Sri Chinma said: “Yesterday I was smart, I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, and therefore I am changing myself.”
Questions and answers. Virginia Kalinauskienė answers.
In the near future we are preparing a tour to Crete “I am a happy woman”. And just received a question from one woman, she asks: “Is it possible to do something, to significantly change relations, if one person wants this? Or can one person change something in a relationship?
Virginia Kalinauskene: Straight to the point! That is what we will do at this seminar, in Crete. This is the basis of the technique - to deal not with the effect, but with the cause. What do I mean by "consequence"? The stream of life. We live in it and understand it: what was, what will be, what we want. But very rarely do we pay attention: who is living, who is this person who lives this stream of life? I noticed that to a greater extent the problem is that a person is not always the reason for his life, that is, he does not control this process, the wonderful process of life. You can start with “Who am I? What am I? Am I the cause that sets the tuning fork of my desires and deeds? Can I influence the environment with those desires that I want to realize in my life?
The women's seminar begins with who I am, what is my position in life, how I am built emotionally, whether I am harmonious. My energy content, my consciousness, that is, the whole integrity. When a person allows himself at least a little to orient himself in this stream of life. In the fact that he can create himself, consider his economy. What am I made of, how can I apply what is beautiful and strong in me. And when a person orients himself in this way, he discovers in himself a state of happiness, harmony for his inner self. And he says: “I am already happy, I am harmonious, but the whole world is still around in chaos, in some kind of uncontrollable flow. But I can already feel it." This is the first step.
The second step is to gain strength, harmony, so that this state is not only for yourself, but you naturally begin to radiate this state. The second step is what can begin to change the situation around you, that is, your life. Not only in yourself, for yourself, but also the environment. So, by working with ourselves and investing in ourselves, harmonizing ourselves, we get ourselves for ourselves and the excess that can affect relationships. To make the process manageable. You appear as the reason. And then changes are possible around.
This is probably the shortest way to say about the scheme of what we do and will do in Crete.
Marius: Okay, thanks. As I understand it, any changes always come from within, that is, we first work with ourselves, change our view, and then we can influence the situation in this way.
Thanks Virginia for your reply. It will be possible to get answers to such and other questions at the training in Crete “I am a happy woman”. We still have a couple of spots left. If anyone wants, you can join. See you soon!
(357 words) Man is a social being, society has an important influence on him, and this fact was comprehended in world literature within the framework of realism. It was the realists who spoke of a typical hero in typical circumstances, and it was precisely the environment, the environment characteristic of this era, that made him so. Or can it be the other way around: the individual can change society? Many classics have pondered over this topic.
We find a positive answer to this question in the drama of A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm". The main character, Katerina, had the courage to rebel against an aggressive society for the right to love and be loved. The woman grew up internally free, and after marriage fell under the despotic power of her mother-in-law and the Puritan morality of the province. She could not endure this oppression, she needed an outlet, which was love for the unworthy of her, but such an attractive Boris. Katerina could not lie and hide for a long time, so she confessed her sin. Punishment followed immediately: insults, beatings, actual imprisonment. The heroine escaped and drowned herself, thereby freeing herself and showing by personal example that everything cannot be decided by force, guided by the indestructible dogmas of Domostroy. Only after her act did Kuligin and Tikhon find their voice, and Varvara fled a little earlier. And this sanctimonious, ossified world swayed to fall soon.
But sometimes the individual is the loser. This happened with Chatsky, the hero of the comedy A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit". Returning from abroad and full of new ideas, Alexander meets an unkind reception: for Sophia, whom he loved, he becomes too arrogant, for her father Famusov - too poor, for former comrades - too dangerous. The hero just wants understanding and friendliness, but he "grew" out of the society around him, it was left behind. That's why everyone so easily believed in his madness. However, Chatsky is trying to explain himself, to prove to others what the truth is. But do they need it? Sophia is satisfied with her submissive and meek admirer Molchalin (who courts her for profit). But it was precisely on her that the protagonist hoped most of all, and even in her he was deceived. Alexander was unable to change society, formally he lost the battle, but his thoughts and feelings are alive, relevant, they will still be reflected in the future.
A person is not capable of suddenly changing society on its own. Change can only take place if those around you are ready for it, the time has come. However, one should not give up and give up, not considering it possible to change something, because from the light of many lonely lights a huge luminous flux is necessarily formed.
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