Continued...

Change the world, eh...How?  First, by treating the people you run into today as eternal beings, because that's what they are.  

Two things to keep in mind:  First, as Lewis says, 

"It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.  Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither...If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world.  If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.  I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same."

Now this next excerpt may seem to contradict the first, but I assure you it doesn't.

Chris Fabry - "At the Corner of Mundane and Grace" - Chap. 47:

"I once read a book that chronicled the incredible journey of a man who quit his lucrative job, divorced his wife, sold his possessions, and moved to a beach house along the coast of California.  It was a beautifully written book with a nice cover that made you want to do the same.

In those pages I sensed a searching, the same desire I have to salve the daily ache of the ordinary. The author was trying to fill the hole in his soul with sand, salt air, and driftwood art.  But a beautifully written book does not make it a true book, nor does emptying ourselves of all responsibility help us achieve authenticity.

Going back to nature, getting close to crabs and mackerel, will not, in the end, prove your existence is worthy.  It only gets you closer to crabs and mackerel.  It's easier for me to see this flaw since I'm not sure crabs and mackerel are that fond of people like me.  I would rather eat them than spend time with them.  But something in me yearns for this kind of romance.  It sounds fulfilling to leave everything and everyone behind and begin again.

Upon closer examination of the story, however, I saw it was not a life filled with simple abundance.  It was simply pathetic.

The author of this beautifully written book pointed to Paul Gauguin as an authentic, artistic individual.  To correctly pronounce the French name 'Gauguin,' you must sound as if you have a big hunk of crab in your mouth.  Paul Gauguin forsook his wife and five children and took a residence in Tahiti, where he could paint all day and smell the sea and live as if  nothing else in the world mattered but his gift.  Perhaps if I were more gifted, like Gauguin, I would understand his choice.  This, I believe, is one of the many blessings of mediocrity.

Anyone can run away fro life.  Anyone can take off their watch and say they are free from the restrictions of time.  As idyllic as it sounds, I have decided not to emulate these people.  I want to be a man who takes off his watch and sits in the middle of the floor, no matter how crowded with toys and stale Cheerios, and plays with his children until they believe he truly loves them.  I want to be a man who is not concerned about getting away from every encumbrance of life but who wants to use those encumbrances to make a statement to those around him: 'You are more important to me than things.  You are more important than my ambitions.  You are eternal.  These are temporal.   I want to spend my life on you, not on them or even myself." ...

But amidst this grand desire, I have a desperate problem: I am no better than the person who runs off to Tahiti and abandons his children, for every day I am just as selfish.  I don't often take off my watch and let the children jump on my back, but when I do, I'm only down there a few minutes before I look at the clock and wonder when I can start doing what I really want.  Every day with little decisions I choose the Island of Me instead of some exotic solace.  It looks a lot more respectable than Tahiti, but it seems just as far away to my wife and kids.  The only difference between Gauguin and me, other that the way you pronounce it, is that I am left with a thousand choices each day instead of one big one."

Hopefully, you will see the connection.