LITTLE THINGS

Life, during these many weeks on the couch, has been all about the little things.  One of my biggest accomplishments yesterday was killing a fly that had been annoying me for some time.  I stalked him, laid in wait, tried to outsmart him, and then struck him down ruthlessly when the chance arose.  It was an event.  When there are no grand projects that can be accomplished, when there are no outings to be enjoyed, when there are few diversions in the course of very long days, the little things begin to loom very large.  Dinnertime is this huge high moment of enjoyment each day.  If someone visits, it becomes the very focal point.  I obsess over every passing sensation inside of my cast.  Getting to the bathroom is a fresh challenge to be mastered.  When Maureen brings me a drink, it feels like such a gift.  All the little things around me have taken on such import. 

Of course, this odd time in my life is just a reminder that all of our lives are really just a collection of little things.  Yes, we like to think we have a greater sense of purpose or direction.  We like to think that life as a whole has some great meaning.  And perhaps it does.  But the reality of our every day life is just a succession of little things.  We get up in the morning and brush our teeth and take a shower and brew some coffee and choose some clothes and fuss over all of the tiny tasks that make up each day.  Writing this article is one of the little tasks of my day today, and yes, there is an overall point to it (which I hope I eventually get to), but the task really consists of choosing words, one at a time, setting them down and choosing more.  Each sentence is a little thing that I create and it either works or it doesn’t, it is either beautiful or it isn’t, and the final product is just the cumulative result of a few hundred little choices.  

Our relationships are like this.  A friendship or a marriage has some larger context, but it is really made up of little moments, little gestures, kind or cruel words, glances, tones of voice, caresses or shuns.  A relationship is just the sum total of a thousand little decisions that we make each day about what to say or not to say, how to respond or avoid, when to be honest and when to hedge, moving closer and moving away.  And all of those little things matter because they are all we have.  The positive things; the intimate moments, the gifts the shared laughs; they accumulate and create the larger context that we call love.  Or the little negative moments; the bursts of anger, the choices to be somewhere else, the avoidance of contact, the moments of jealousy or resentment; they too build up and they create an uglier relationship.

Life IS just this collection of little things.  In our minds, we weave them into larger patterns and trends and stories.  But we can never forget how crucial the little things are.  Out spiritual lives are especially about the little things.  It would be wonderful if God could speak to us in some big booming voice and tell us who or how to be, but instead, what we have are a thousand little things.  God speaks to us in little moments of beauty, little momentary flashes of insight, small gifts of love, tiny fragments of vision.  The real task of faith is to be spiritually awake and aware enough to notice the little stuff and to allow it to touch us and teach us and move us.

The reason, of course, that God seems present most especially in the little things is because that is what God is made up of as well.  The God we worship is not some big looming overpowering presence “out there” somewhere, not some super being riding on clouds.  God is instead the still small spirit living in you and in me and in a million little others around us.  God is the tinge of eternity and beauty that glistens in a million little flowers spread across a million meadows.  God is the hint of grace that animates each of the million little moments that make up our days.

It is indeed, all about the little things.  The sum total of the little things is all we have; it is all we are; it is the heart of God.  So notice the little things.  Make each little moment mean something good.  Find the still, small voice of God echoing in the sound of a mosquito or the sight of a butterfly, or the touch of a lover or the kind word of a friend.  Little things.

David

(P.S.   I’ll be back in the pulpit on June 24.)