Big power in small things

A lot of us feel pretty ineffective most of the time when looking at the world’s problems. We see suffering everywhere. Near to us, far from us, rich, poor, popular, lonely. Suffering appears to be ubiquitous to the human experience.

I know when I watch the news, I have to resist the urge to turn it off for the profound sensation of inadequacy it brings up in me.

I also know I am far from alone in this. I am sure that there are likely plenty of those who are not consciously recognizing why it is they feel the need to just pull the covers over their heads and pretend it’s all not happening. They simply feel overwhelmed and want it to stop.

I want to do that myself, but try as I may, I’m just not built that way. I can’t shut off my desire to make a positive impact in a frightening world. I wouldn’t say that this inner drive makes me feel any more effective, however. It often makes me feel as though I’m throwing grains of sand in a lake and expecting a great ripple.

What I frequently forget is that even a grain of sand does indeed make a ripple. It might not meet with my lofty expectations, and I might have to look quite closely to pick up on it. But even a grain of sand is still an object with mass, subject to the laws of cause and effect. A ripple is indeed the effect, even if small.

Must we be satisfied by that? Can we be? Ought we be? I think so.

I do think we should be satisfied by any ripple we make in the direction of being a loving force in the world.

The first day of spring was this week. And for the past few years, I have posted a series of countdowns to spring on my social media.

Nothing all that elaborate, or even daily. Just a little post counting down the days here and there when I felt like it.

Last November, before winter even began, my daughter asked when I would be starting my countdown to spring. I laughed because it was far earlier than any countdown I had done before. And the fact that she asked me about it as though it were a thing almost made it seem as though it was a tradition I had unwittingly begun.

But, in recognizing she was identifying a small need that she wanted something to look forward to, it occurred to me she would likely not be the only one. So, at 120 days to go before the first day of spring, I began counting down.

The response I got this time was noticeable for the number of comments people made about how relieved they were to see these posts. Sometimes they were having a hard day and just needed to see something positive. Sometimes the cold was just getting them that day.

Of course, there were those who cautioned me to avoid wishing my life away, and to find encouragement in the present. I do agree with them in principle, because I am definitely a “be here now “kind of guy. But there are limits. And even though I have long reconciled myself to the beauty and other comforts that living through a New England winter can provide, and I never want to permanently move to a warmer climate, I still greatly look forward to the warmer seasons.

Doing the countdown this year, and beginning it so early, it made me realize that this little effort did indeed provide a number of people, possibly more than I realize, tiny grains of real comfort.

Perhaps we need it more now than ever due to the deeply conflicted world we presently live in. Maybe we need simple reminders here and there while in the midst of turmoil that all shall be well.

Posting the countdown to spring was an impossibly small effort during a very large time of challenge. But perhaps its size does not accurately describe its value.

I read an article once about a study that was done on the brain waves of people while thinking positive and negative thoughts. The negative thoughts registered very small brain waves. The positive thoughts were dramatically larger.

In my mind, the implications of this are twofold. One, that when we worry our negative thinking might have a tendency to bring more negativity into our lives, we have to realize it doesn’t have anywhere near the power we fear it does. And two, that we negate our small actions of love as being inconsequential, when the likely reality is that they are infinitely more far-reaching than we could imagine.

Try to take some comfort from this, if you can. Consider being more confident about the impact of even our smallest gestures of comfort and compassion. We are far from powerless. We have only to recognize that fact in order to change the world for the better. One grain of sand at a time.

Wil Darcangelo, M.div, is a Unitarian Universalist Minister at the First Parish of Fitchburg and the First Church of Lancaster. He is also the host of a monthly radio show called Our Common Dharma based on his columns every 4th Monday at noon on WPKZ 105.3FM. Email wildarcangelo@gmail.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @wildarcangelo. His blog, Hopeful Thinking, can be found at www. hopefulthinkingworld.blogspot.com.