My “Drop in the Bucket” Theory
I organized a church service about caring for creation. I wanted people to think about the climate emergency.
I used the opportunity to discuss feelings of hopelessness and the power of our significance. I reminded people that, like small drips falling into a big bucket, small actions accumulate. Soon the bucket fills. That’s how great things get done—by persistent effort. I call that my “drop in the bucket” theory.
At the end I gave them some time to turn and talk to each other about the little caring things they already do for the planet and for other people’s survival. I wanted them to notice how many useful and important things they had been “forgetting” or discounting. I asked them to consider working with others in the congregation instead of doing things alone. I told them that would help them remember that they are not alone and that we are stronger working together.
After the service, and for the next several Sundays, people came up to me to talk about things they were planning to do together next or how they felt more powerful or clear about what it was they were doing.
It was scary to be that visible with my thinking and hopefulness, but doing it made me happy, proud, and less afraid to do more.
Below is my talk [slightly excerpted—editor]:
I was raised working class and Catholic, but the stories in the Bible often confused me. For instance, it says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” As a young person, I was just really impressed with how much God got done in seven days. But as I got older, I started thinking that maybe God also had impossibly high standards, because after everything was finished, God simply said it was “good.” Good? Honestly, on so many levels that word is weak.
I look around every day, and I can’t help but think that what we have here is a lot better than just good. We have an incredible system of interwoven life. A finely calibrated balancing act of temperature, gases, elements, and processes that in billions of years has produced life! Lots of life—from bacteria to plants and lots of creatures of amazing varieties. Including all of us. I call that more than good! Even if you don’t believe in divine intervention, what are the odds? That just by chance all the different things needed for life would come together on this chunk of rock spinning in the vastness of space and that life would spring up?
Think about it. First nothing. Then cosmic dust condensing into molten rock, then erupting primal ooze, and now all of us sitting around wherever we are. I can’t even imagine all the things that could have gone wrong. But here we are. What are the odds of that? I also can’t imagine not doing everything I can think of to take care of life on this world. Out of an honest appreciation of the remote odds, at least.
I think we all know that there is a problem that is threatening life on this planet that is our home. We hear on the news about more hurricanes every year. We see our lakes, rivers, and reservoirs going dry. We can watch videos of ancient glaciers cracking apart. We see borders being armed against people trying to find safety and help in a world where famine, flood, and disease are making governments, food sources, and water supplies less stable.
If you’re like me, you see all this and know that climate change is real. But you bog down [get discouraged] at the scope of the problems. What can one person do really? Climate change is huge, and “I’m just me, no matter how much I care.”
When I first heard about climate change, I got angry. I was older and beginning to finally have enough time and some money to travel and relax. Then bam! The news kept getting worse. The more I learned, the madder I got. But what could I do? Change lightbulbs? Recycle, ride the bus, become a vegetarian, hold up a sign, write the governor? Sure. But all that is just a “drop in the bucket.”
But then I thought, have you ever had a dripping faucet and put a big bucket under it? You must keep emptying that darn bucket over and over during the day and night because that little drip fills it up much faster than you’d expect it would. If drips add up, then maybe all the small climate-change-related things we do are helping.
When I first became a vegetarian, I could not get a salad anywhere in a fast-food place or anything more than steamed vegetables in a restaurant. We vegetarians changed that with our eating habits. Now more people can easily choose to eat less meat and help the planet.
Twelve years ago, newspapers would talk about “unprecedented temperatures” or “unseasonable weather patterns” but never mention climate change as a contributing factor. Today you can’t pick up a newspaper that doesn’t talk about it, even if some are still arguing that “it isn’t that bad,” or that “it’s not our fault.” The climate reality did that, sure, but our increasing attention to the shifts did, too. Letter by letter, protest by protest, we drew public attention to the issues as something we cared about, instead of settling for business as usual. Drip, drip.
Now this is my “drop in the bucket theory”: small things are doable, and thus great things get done. How many saw the beautiful 2012 film Chasing Ice, by photographer James Balog? He filmed for just a few years, for National Geographic, how fast glaciers are melting around the world. He did incredibly daunting physical things to get that footage. It’s astounding what he went through. But there is a scene in the movie where he says he does it because he wants to be able to say to his two young girls when they ask, “Daddy, what did you do to stop climate change?” that “I did everything I could think of.” Did his movie stop the glacier melt? Nope. But it made the abstraction of climate change real for a lot of people who couldn’t see it was happening yet.
I’m an artist, and I also want to do everything I can think of. That’s why I keep bringing up the climate and environmental justice every chance I get. Like now. Because human lives and the natural world are an interwoven loop. The earth is a closed system, and we are part of the interlocking web. So, as one of my “drop in the bucket actions,” I’m letting you know today about an art exhibition I have co-curated called Stories of the Land. The artworks all tell stories about different facets of the interwoven human and natural world relationship. And, just so you know, I’m arranging for a Sunday when the gallery will be open for us to tour the exhibit.
But right now, I’d like you to think about our church and what we have here as a “power of goodness,” like Lao Tzu mentioned, where our small actions add up.
I’m going to ask you all a question. Take a second to think about it; then turn to someone near you and tell them your answer. Then we’ll switch, and you can listen to them. You will each have two minutes to talk. I will tell you when it’s time to switch. Here’s the question: “What small acts of caring for creation do you do? And how can our church and its members be part of them?”
Remember, you are not in this incredible moment of change alone. People are good. They care, and together we get big things done.
Santa Ana, California, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders in the transformation of society
(Present Time 207, April 2022)