From Our President
“We can be like a fleck of sea foam riding the wave of change, or we can be the butterfly that flaps its wings and sets off a tsunami.” I recall saying this at the opening of our retreat in 2010. I’ve pondered since how much truth there might be in it.
The butterfly effect expresses one of the key concepts in chaos theory, namely that in certain complex systems, changing an initial condition by a small amount can have a large effect on the system’s resulting behavior. Weather systems are the stock example. Alter the temperature or pressure in some location by a tiny amount—illustrated by the efforts of the famous butterfly—and the details of weather weeks down the road can be completely changed.
This is a God’s-eye view, however. From the butterfly’s perspective, it will seldom be evident that she has done anything special at all. If the sun was shining when she spread her wings, the sun will continue to shine. If it was raining, the rain will continue to fall.
Human social interactions are often chaotic in this sense. A small act of kindness can alter the behavior of an expanding network of others in ways that cannot be foreseen. So can a small act of spite. All of the world’s great religions have understood this truth, but we moderns seem to need the warrant of science in order to believe it.
Still, even with butterflies, size does matter. When a few Quaker ministers began preaching against slavery in the 1700’s, they shifted the center of gravity of their faith community from acceptance of that institution to active resistance. Those congregations, in turn, decisively influenced the course of American history. Had those ministers not had congregations to speak to, they would not have been nearly as effective.
That is where our unity as a congregation comes in. Acting together against today’s exclusion, oppression, and violence, we may still be just a butterfly in comparison with the vast society surrounding us, but we’re a bigger butterfly. If we stand on the side of love together, we have a better chance of moving America toward the good than we could as individuals.
Why shouldn’t we have a dream?
Peace,
John Andrews
