Dear Friends,
Have you ever been encouraged by others to “think big?" I
have. Thinking big is a worldview, an attitude that can lead to success in the
world’s estimation.
Thinking big involves expecting more, better, larger
physical, mental, spiritual amounts of everything. The creators of the concept
leading to self-storage units strewn across the landscape understood what it
means to think big. They knew that people had long ago internalized this
concept and were in need of more space for everything they had accumulated.
Today, let’s spend time with what “thinking small” might
offer us.
Small pleasures, small blessings, small gifts, small steps,
small realizations.
Our everyday spiritual lives are most often one of these
“smalls” or a combination of them. Jesus, in the Gospel, paid great attention
to the power of the small: a cup of cold water, the lilies of the field, the
sparrow, one fig tree that didn’t bear fruit, the poor, the sick, the lame and
the children who were too small to be considered important. In the Magnificat, Jesus’ Mother, Mary
sang of God who has lifted up the lowly.
There are a few saints in the history of the church who did
remarkable things. Most were faithful to
their call from God in small ways. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, wrote
often of the power of the small: “Miss no single opportunity of making some
small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word…" and elsewhere
“Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do small things with great
love.”
Sometimes, in a gesture of universal recognition, something enters the public awareness as remarkably important. Such was the case in 1954 when Kitty Kallen introduced a song which has endure to today: “Little Things Mean A Lot.” This song had only one message: the power of the small.
“Give me your arm when we cross the street.
A line a day when you’re far away.
Give me your hand when I’ve lost the way
Give me your shoulder to cry on.
Whether the day is bright or gray,
Give me your heart to rely on.
Little things mean a lot.”
As winter deepens and the darkness still falls early, as Valentine’s Day approaches and we prepare to celebrate the loves of our lives, express God’s presence to all we meet in the small gestures that every day can hold.
~ Sister Joan Sobala
