Small Things

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Like most boys, I had a string of answers for this growing up:  a fireman, a stuntman, President of the United States. As I grew older, my list was refined, but one thing remained constant:  I have focused on what I want to be, and have almost completely neglected what I want to do.  I have attended to the titles and positions I want to attain without any clear notion of what I would do once I got there.  Worse still, while thinking "grand thoughts" about what I might be, I have often neglected to do those things that are already right in front of me. 

Shane Claiborne quotes Mother Theresa as saying, "We can do no great things, only small things with great love."  Maybe this is part of what she meant.  

I am embarrassed that it is taking me so long to begin to learn this lesson: All I am ever given is the thing that's in front of me. It changes everything to ask the question, "What small thing can I do now? What small way can I practice loving well?"-- regardless of position, or title, or what anyone else thinks of me.

So instead of position or a grandness scale, the discipline to my thinking would be something like, "If there is not a concrete and loving action I can take in regard to x thought, skip it and move on until I can envision something concrete and loving, no matter how small."

I bet that needs a lot of refining, but I'm going to post it anyhow.