I recently bought a book by Danny Wallace, the original "Yes Man." It's called Random Acts of Kindness and is a lot funnier than it sounds. It is jammed-pack with stories and tips about how to make the world a better place, and  put a smile on your own face while you're at it.

 

Give someone a massage, it suggests, but check with them first; otherwise, you may be up for assault. Hail a cab and give the cabbie a packet of peanuts. Change your voice mail message so that it starts with the line, "You look good, have you been working out?" That kind of thing.

In the do-gooder flick Pay It Forward, Trevor McKenney asks his teacher after receiving an unusual homework assignment, "Are you saying you'll flunk us if we don't change the world?" To which Eugene responds, "Well, no. But you might just scrape by with a C."

 

Many of us have been "scraping by with a C" for awhile now. Recently, there's been a surge of activity in the western hemisphere to connect people of faith with meaningful and intentional action in regard to issues of poverty and injustice. The fact that millions of people are no longer content with scraping by with a "C" is beautiful thing, but we need to be careful. In a world full of despair and great need, it's easy to lose yourself in the pursuit of justice. No one ever seems to talk much about this – how justice can consume you, keep you up at night, become an obsession, and even distract you from God.