Dear Friends

I have to confess that I have always been irresistibly attracted to other people’s bookcases. Running my eye over their contents I am often delighted, and occasionally  surprised, to encounter some of my own life-long companions, along with more recent acquaintances and some intriguing strangers.

On a recent overnight visit to an old friend I was quite dismayed, on scanning her shelves for a bedtime read, to find nothing even remotely familiar, nor anything likely to attract or interest me, or even to lull me to sleep. No frivolous fiction; no light verse; plenty of serious-looking stuff on the Psychology of Marketing, and Ethical Advertising – undoubtedly fascinating, but hardly material for my personal Book at Bedtime slot.

It was actually the sub-title of Malcolm Gladwell’s book that caught my eye: How little things can make a difference. Its main title, The Tipping Point, might well have passed me by – in spite of the fact that it is proclaimed on the front cover to be ‘The International No. 1 Bestseller’.  (As I write this I am suddenly struck by the shaming thought that perhaps every other literate individual in the civilised world has been familiar with this book since it first appeared in 2000. I phone a few literate friends to check, and am reassured to find that this is not the case. So I can continue.)

Gladwell’s book is a fascinating attempt to fathom why it is that some products, ideas, trends and attitudes catch on and spread like a contagious disease through a community or society; and why some do not. Central to his argument is the role of key individuals and apparently minor events, whose influence is quite out of proportion to their numbers in spreading ‘contagion’, beneficial or otherwise. Through them, and through what he calls the ‘stickiness’ of the product, a critical mass is achieved which brings about the ‘tipping point’, resulting in sudden powerful and unstoppable change.

The areas where Gladwell’s ideas might apply are almost boundless. They have obvious implications in the sphere of politics, local, national and global; in education, in local communities and churches; in individual lives. Gladwell’s case studies include accounts of both bad and good contagion.  Have we already reached, for example, a tipping point towards a society in which news of children shooting and stabbing to death other children is becoming so common that it almost fails to shock? God forbid! But what will it take to build up such a critical mass of concern, understanding and action as to tip the balance the other way, and to bring about that unstoppable change for good that Gladwell describes?

The answer, it seems to me, lies in that subtitle, that drew me to this book in the first place because it reinforces something I firmly believe. Though perhaps not many of us are called to positions of obvious power and influence, we should never  underestimate the potential each one of us has to bring about change – to be carriers, to use Gladwell’s terms, of a contagious virus. Viruses are not (usually) spread deliberately; they don’t need to be. Take chicken pox, for example! It begins with the odd red spot or two, spreads rapidly over the body, is transmitted to others in the immediate vicinity, and in no time there is an epidemic. Many great reform movements have started with a small but powerful ‘itch’ in a particular individual. We may not all aspire to bringing about change on the scale of a Wilberforce, an Elizabeth Fry or a Nelson Mandela – though for all of them, too, there must have been that initial itch which would not go away and leave them in peace. The challenge is there for all of us: we all have far more influence than we may be aware of. For better or worse we infect those around us with the virus of our beliefs and concerns, transmitted through our words and everyday actions – and who knows how far this ‘infection’ may spread. Looked at like that, the implications of what we are and what we do are of positively global importance.

Yours in Christ

Rosemary

A prayer: Lord, let there be peace and justice in all the world; and let it begin with me.