Changing my piece of the world

November 1960, I watched as presidential results came over the ABC network. When Kennedy went ahead, I called a Republican classmate (we were in the fifth grade). I said we could do anything. She and I didn't talk much after that.

Thanksgiving 1963, I stood in line to go back into class. I was in the seventh grade. A classmate was smiling and laughing. "Did you hear the president is dead? Isn't that great?" At 1 p.m., the principal's voice came over the loudspeaker to tell us Kennedy had died. I dreamed over the next three nights that I had died instead of Kennedy. The world was changed, but for the worse not the better.

From 1969 to 1972 I watched ABC news accounts of how many enemies had died and how many military had died. I watched in my college dorm room as the world went crazy. I saw protesters but in small-town Oklahoma I could not be one of them. I saw sit-ins for peace and for equal rights. In 1972 I married a soldier. He left the Army in 1973. I found peace, love, and marijuana from Fort Sill, Okla., to Golden, Colo.

In 1985 I was divorced. I was fired from my job. The following year I found a new job in a new city. I fell in love. I was married.

I found myself a minority in my state -- a yellow dog, FDR New Deal Democrat in a steadily increasing Republican arena. I saw no hope for change -- at least the type of change I wanted.

In 1992 my son was born. I was 41. Seven years later I graduated from seminary with a Master of Divinity and had a diagnosis of early stage breast cancer. I preached and taught for eight years and found myself at odds with my denomination. I believed in bi-vocational ministry and my denomination wanted me -- never mind my family. But I saw people come to the church because they heard something. I watched a small congregation become a larger congregation.

In 2006 I saw the Democrats take control of the federal House and Senate. I saw my state's Senate equally divided between Democrat and Republican. In 2007 I've retired from 20 years with a municipality.

And at 56 I'm a bit lost. What I wanted to do -- change the world -- I could not and did not do. But I've taught students about religion. I've helped people in crisis find the help they needed. I hear my teen-age son talking about equality for all people -- regardless of age, race, gender identity, religion, or political party.

I didn't change the world. There is still war, still poverty. There are children in my state going hungry tonight. I can't change the world, but I can change my piece of it. And with that change someone else is touched. And that person touches someone else. The random acts of kindness -- random acts of positive change -- do change the world. Perhaps I am still that 10-year-old fifth-grader watching presidential returns. We can do anything -- one step, one thought, one touch at a time.