The other day, when I went to the grocery store to get some baking supplies, I was approached by a lady outside who was working for food donations.  She handed me a small slip of paper with a list of badly needed items, and asked if I could get a few things for her for the holiday season donation campagin the local churches were running.  I had only planned to get one or two things, but I left with a basket full of supplies and foodstuffs for them.  They were shocked I gave as much as I did, but why not?  I try to do a good turn once in a while, after all.

As I was leaving the parking lot, I realized that what I did wasn’t really that much.  Sure, one family might be able to not worry about food as much as they did last year.  But even then, isn’t that a powerful thing in its own right?  The power of “one fewer”, even though it’s only one, can have immense consequences.

What if one fewer family went hungry on Thanksgiving?  What if one fewer child went without a present on Christmas?  What if one fewer family had to grieve the loss of a child due to hunger or disease?  What if one fewer person had to freeze in their own home in the winter?  What if one fewer person had to lose their home because of bad politics?  What if one fewer bystander had to recover from a stray bullet?  What if one fewer child were bullied because of how they appeared or acted?  What if one fewer parent were killed because of how they appeared or acted?

The ability to effect “one fewer” is not hard.  The consequences of effecting “one fewer” can be mind-blowing.  Why not try, in one more year, to see how many “one fewer” bad things we can get done in the world?  It doesn’t have to be a big thing; in fact, that’s quite the point.