For the past day and a half, I've been reading the second book of The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire. The main character, Katniss, is the hero of the story, but she only ever has one goal in mind: to protect her younger sister Prim. Reading the second book, I am struck by the power of one person's love for another. Katniss never intended to ignite a revolution or start a movement. But her love for her sister, lived out for the whole country to see, was the only force strong enough to stand up to the all-powerful Capitol.
Another quote comes to mind from the movie, The Last Station, which portrays the end of Leo Tolstoy's life. His wife Sofya says, "I am the work of your life, you are the work of mine. That's what love is!" Tolstoy's disciples want to make him an icon, a figurehead for their religious devotion to his ideals. It is what Sofya says, though, that makes him great: his love.
In our world of mass communication, the draw of focusing one's life around communicating with a large audience is sometimes irresistible. Whether one's message is in the form of a televised sermon, a blockbuster film or a 160-character tweet sent to a thousand followers, communicating with lots of people at once is deceptively simple. But the larger the number reached by a message does not indicate the power of its impact. While mass communication has its place, it is the love of one person for another that changes the world.
It seems that every time I come across this message, it is new. I think of the young, idealistic me who graduated from college, wanting to change the world. It feels like I have accomplished so little since then. I think of my friends who also graduated with such lofty ambitions. So many of us have found ourselves discouraged by our inability to flip the world on its head.
Katniss Everdeen is reminding me, though, that the world doesn't change overnight. Loving one person or a few people and shaping one's life around giving yourself completely to them is how the world changes. Sometimes that love happens to reach a wide audience; other times it is contained to those by whom and for whom it is given. I doubt that anything I do will reach a wide audience, but if it does, I hope that it is first defined by love.
The Last Station trailer
3 comments:
This is so good, Mar! Totally makes me think about stuff I've done / am doing. Because yeah, def. seems like the most powerful stuff is that which is done for one person. I think we can also love groups of people, but in front of a group, it so easily becomes more about ourselves and less about loving them. So anyways, good thoughts. And now I want to see that movie.
Yeah. I'm glad you think so too! I just read this quote by Rich Mullins the other day, "If your life is motivated by an ambition to leave a legacy, what you'll probably leave as a legacy is ambition." I think that sums it up nicely!
Oh, and you should definitely see that movie. It's really good!
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