Small Things

After reflecting on my interview with my bishop the other day, it seemed right to write to him yesterday; and it seems right now to report that the reply I received was gracious, kind, honest and very positively framed. For all the discouragement I'm bound to feel, I find my respect for this man growing. Just thought I'd say that.

The siskins that had so delighted me over recent days seemed this week to have disappeared from my garden - but this morning there have been a few again, and I've been able once more to watch their acrobatic prowess at our feeding station. I don't imagine we'll have them here much longer, as the days lengthen and the weather improves.

I woke this morning with the message in my head, "Do small things". I can only interpret this as being an answer to my prayer of last night, where I was struggling to think what the purpose and direction of my life should be. "Do small things." Even those whose lives revolve around big things, those whose decisions as statesmen, captains of industry, opinion formers, affect the lives of millions, need to to take care to do the small things - to make the most of the opportunities that arise each day to say the right word, to touch a shoulder in encouragement, to pause and delight in a view, to listen to a song, to stroke the cat. This is where real life is centred, and the big things are not possible unless the small things are right.

St David famously urged his people, in his last sermon to them, to "do the small things you have seen me do and have heard about" (I think that's right, from memory). Mother Theresa wrote of the need to "do small things with great love." Small things are important, both for our own health and in the service we offer to others. My bishop's prompt and kind response to my message was a small thing, but very important to me; my siskins (if I may be so proprietorial) are small things too - but the important small thing for me this morning has been to take a few moments just to stop what I'm doing and to delight in their antics.

But the thrust of the message, I suppose, is simply this: that the big issues that tend to crowd and scare me as I look to my future are not what is really important. What is important is that I take the time to be aware of possibilities, make the most of opportunities, be of service and use and good cheer to others, in the small ways and the informal occasions for mercy and love, that each day is bound to bring. What I am, and what I am allowed to be, status and role and recognition, is less important - much less - than what I can do, what I can share, and what I can receive in small ways just as a child of God and within my bit of his world.