Pantagruel and kitty cats

I do not expect to save the world. I fully expect that 10,000 years from now, the world will be the same miserable place that it is now. But caring people -- loving individuals -- have it within themselves to cast occasional shafts of light along the surface of this poor, dark cinder. And this is important, for the light comes straight from God.

Like the famous story of the young man on the seashore who gladly tossed one stranded starfish after another into the sea, although there were clearly too many of them for him to make much of a difference. Clearly, most of the starfish would die. An old man comes along and ridicules him. And says: "You know, don't you, that there's no way you can save all of these poor, doomed creatures?" Whereupon the young man picks up a starfish and tosses it a country mile out into the water. "Made a difference for that one," he says.

It's God's light. You and I project it. Thus, we affect the lives of people we know, and the lives of their children. And so we make a difference -- even though in 10,000 years, the world will be the same miserable place it is now.