What happens to compassion when it’s pitted up against the urgent needs of twenty to seventy million refugees/displaced people, including big-eyed children and bearded veterans with dogs? Do you hit the donate button on the screen like I sometimes do? Or do you feel overwhelmed and want to give up because nothing you do can ever be enough?

Of course we have a list of charities we support with modest, automatic deductions from our account we don’t even miss. And I sign petitions, send e-mails, make phone calls, write The Strongly Worded Letter, and wave signs on street corners.

The other day my contribution to world peace was baking egg and cheese muffins. The muffins, along with other finger foods and coffee, quieted the hunger pangs of those who stayed after Quaker meeting to hear an afternoon presentation on non-violent action in support of humanitarian goals in the mideast.

Did my muffins stop any bullets? No, of course not. Will the wide array of finger foods at the rise of our one Quaker meeting make any difference? I can’t know.

But maybe someone who stayed for the program, someone who heard something helpful or picked up the Pendell Hill pamphlet*, will join this non-violent action. Maybe they will talk to others and inspire someone else to take part, too, or maybe even to think of a better solution.

Nothing I do will ever be enough. But doing something, starting somewhere, gives us a chance to change the world.

• Pendell Hill Pamphlet 445: ‘Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions? A Quaker Zionist Rethinks Palestinian Rights’ by Steve Chase