The greatness of little things

OF course, big things come from small things. The former is made of the latter. No building will rise if no sand, gravel, cement, wood, bars, etc. are put all together. As an ancient Greek writer said: “From base things we devise things noble.” No orchestra will play great music if its many members will not play their part properly.

We need to see the organic connection between the little things and the big things, the here-and-now and the beyond, the means and the end, the material and the spiritual, the natural and the supernatural. We need to see that connection and be fascinated by it always.

Our usual problem is to get stuck with one or the other term of the equation. Our usual problem is we either get too focused on the little things without relating them to the big things, or we have the bias of considering only the goal or the result without giving due attention to the often tedious means and processes.

Without seeing and living this connection, we become vulnerable to miss our goals, or we can fail to burn and grow in our love—for God and for others. We cannot persevere in our pursuits. Our initial enthusiasm fizzles out easily. The gloss and sheen of our appearance and behavior evaporate in no time.

The Book of Sirach says: “He who despises small things will fail little by little.” (19,1) We have to be most careful because the neglect of little things can easily lull us to complacency, or to think that nothing is wrong and that everything is just fine.

In short, we fail to develop a unity of life. Not only would we be unable to link the present with the future, the means with the end, the internal with the external, we would also fail to relate the mundane with the sacred, the fleeting character of the prosaic elements in our daily life with the permanent value in our life beyond death.

We obviously have to contend with many obstacles along the way. We can tend to be narrow-minded and short-sighted, full of improper biases and attachments. We easily make rash judgments and are often at the mercy of our emotions and passions, putting our reason and faith to sleep.

We can also get tired, or rather, we can cover laziness as tiredness. The general environment, the prevailing culture can be insensitive to the value of little things. It only gives attention to the big things, not the little ones, the desired success, not the necessary effort.

This is where we fail to realize the greatness of the little things, taking them for granted, and to miss the fact that while it’s true that the devil can be in the details to show the falsity of the apparently impressive things we do, God is also in the details, since it’s the little things where we can see God and engage him in a relation of love.

As the spiritual writer Cassian once said, the most subtle trick, the most insidious snare the devil can make on us is to suggest that progress can only be achieved in the big things and not in the little things.

It’s in the little things, it’s in the care we give to the small, ordinary, prosaic activities and concerns of the day that proves whether we are really true to our good intentions and to our fervent affirmations of love and care for the others.

We need to train ourselves to see God in the little things. The objective reality is that God is everywhere. He’s not only in the extraordinary events in our life. He is always with us.

Thus, we need to learn to be contemplative even in the middle of the world, able to see God in all the good, the bad, and the ugly that the world contains. We need to learn how to be recollected so that even as we engage our senses and faculties with the many immediate things in life, we don’t lose sight of the ultimate end.

We need to exercise our faith. We cannot depend solely on what we see, hear or feel. Neither would it be enough that we move only when we understand things. We have to follow closely what our faith tells us, even if there are mysteries involved.

God’s providence is such that not only is he present in everything. He is also actively intervening in our life, especially in the little things, drawing us and everything else to himself.