There is a secret to the spiritual life. It takes long in learning—and too often it comes late in life. But it
is central. And it is key.
Every spiritual master in every tradition talks about the significance of small things in a complex world.
Small actions in social life, small efforts in the spiritual life, small moments in the personal life. All of
them become great in the long run, the mystics say, but all of them look like little or nothing in
themselves.
To the Christian, Christmas itself, the birth of the Christ-child, is the call to recognize the significance
of smallness: to realize what each of us can and must become if we are ever to be fully human.
Our problem is that we are a culture of excesses: to the conventional wisdom, the largest cities are
the best cities. The largest crowds are the sign of the truest position. The greatest amount of money is
the indicator of the most happiness. The highest office is the mark of the most successful person.
But history tells us otherwise. We know that thousands followed Adolph Hitler in his scourge of Europe.
We know that families have been rent to pieces in their struggles for the family fortune and that death,
divorce and disaster come to the wealthy as well as to the poor. We know that presidents and prime
ministers, kings and corporate officers have been deposed and even destroyed just as easily, just as
finally, as the underlings around them. Life comes to us all in all its forms and everywhere.
What is most important is not what’s “important” but what is “true.”
Every morning an old lady came to the waterfront at low tide to throw back into the sea starfish that
had been beached there by the receding waters of the night before. “Old lady,” a young man shouted,
“there are thousands of those things in this sand. What you are doing is useless.” But the old lady said,
as she stooped down to save one more of the sea stars from certain death on the dry strand, “Not to
the ones I throw back, it’s not.”
What matters, what’s significant, is that we develop a vision that is greater than what the world around
us thinks is significant.
Then, maybe we will come to understand the real miracle of Christmas: Jesus came to us as a child so
that we might come to understand not only that nothing we do is insignificant, but that every small
thing we do has within it the power to change the world.
from Becoming Fully Human: The Greatest Glory of God by Joan Chittister (Sheed & Ward)
is central. And it is key.
Every spiritual master in every tradition talks about the significance of small things in a complex world.
Small actions in social life, small efforts in the spiritual life, small moments in the personal life. All of
them become great in the long run, the mystics say, but all of them look like little or nothing in
themselves.
To the Christian, Christmas itself, the birth of the Christ-child, is the call to recognize the significance
of smallness: to realize what each of us can and must become if we are ever to be fully human.
Our problem is that we are a culture of excesses: to the conventional wisdom, the largest cities are
the best cities. The largest crowds are the sign of the truest position. The greatest amount of money is
the indicator of the most happiness. The highest office is the mark of the most successful person.
But history tells us otherwise. We know that thousands followed Adolph Hitler in his scourge of Europe.
We know that families have been rent to pieces in their struggles for the family fortune and that death,
divorce and disaster come to the wealthy as well as to the poor. We know that presidents and prime
ministers, kings and corporate officers have been deposed and even destroyed just as easily, just as
finally, as the underlings around them. Life comes to us all in all its forms and everywhere.
What is most important is not what’s “important” but what is “true.”
Every morning an old lady came to the waterfront at low tide to throw back into the sea starfish that
had been beached there by the receding waters of the night before. “Old lady,” a young man shouted,
“there are thousands of those things in this sand. What you are doing is useless.” But the old lady said,
as she stooped down to save one more of the sea stars from certain death on the dry strand, “Not to
the ones I throw back, it’s not.”
What matters, what’s significant, is that we develop a vision that is greater than what the world around
us thinks is significant.
Then, maybe we will come to understand the real miracle of Christmas: Jesus came to us as a child so
that we might come to understand not only that nothing we do is insignificant, but that every small
thing we do has within it the power to change the world.
from Becoming Fully Human: The Greatest Glory of God by Joan Chittister (Sheed & Ward)
SECRET OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE
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