Friday, December 25, 2015

December 25, 2015 - The Smallest Amount


Just a little more now, the tiniest bit here and there.  It goes unnoticed, really.  It’s like the touch of a feather.  Did it really happen?  Maybe not, we say to ourselves, and on we go with our busy day.  Friends to see, meals to cook, houses to clean, and children to care for.  There’s just so much to take our attention away from what is really happening.  It’s this business of living that makes us forget about this business of life.

Only for a moment.

But it comes now, slowly.  A few seconds here, a minute there, another minute elsewhere.  The days grow longer in increments so tiny that, without special instruments or a fine-tuned awareness of nature, we simply never notice.  Oh, we notice when the days are long.  And we notice when the days are short.  But we never pay attention to how they got there in the first place.  We miss the secret.

Mountains are moved by an ever-so-slow pattern of receding cold.  Surely a small amount of water cannot carve out an entire canyon?  Surely encroaching ice cannot build a mountain?  Surely a flashing moment of sunlight cannot bring life to an entire planet?  But I say that it can, and it does.

The tiny wing beats of a small butterfly echo throughout the universe forever and ever.