small falls of snow

Well, I did my bit as a makeshift 'wise man from the east' when I went round to the school today. Bearing my gifts.

A slightly minty Terry's chocolate orange for the office staff and another of the same for the janny. A way of saying thank you to them all. And giving them a nice surprise to start the day.

I had to leave the janny's at his door since he was nowhere to be seen. But the office staff were glad of what they called a little treat. It maybe isn't much. But giving thanks in ways like that - I think it counts for much.

Little things, that prove to be quite big.

I was in for the school assembly. And though I wasn't speaking, nonetheless before the thing began I had the chance to chat again with pupils from the P4 classes who had given me that book on making soup. Another round of thanks. Reminding them I still had not forgotten what they'd done.

Little things again. But big in terms of how God's kingdom works.

The midweek lunchtime service is a little thing like that. Not long. Not huge in terms of numbers that attend. 30 rather than 300. That sort of size.

But it means a lot and counts for much among the people who are there. Most of them, I guess, no more than just a crowd of 'little' people in the blinkered estimation of the world. Elderly, frail and people on the margins in the main.

But big in the heart of God.

Like Ruth and Boaz, the people at whom we're looking these days through the course of the lunchtime services. Little in terms of background, both of them. The one a foreigner, the other the son of a harlot. Hardly promising starts in life.

But big in the heart of God.

So it's been a day of 'little things' I guess. Though one of the little tasks I had to do involved me going across to the other side of town to do a bit of lifting once again. 16 solid boxes of the booklets that we use in teaching Christian basics to our folk.

Coming Alive! and Staying Alive! and Forever Alive! With the publisher ceasing to trade they were ready to give us the rest of the books that they had at some crazily discounted price.

It didn't feel like these were 'little things' by the time that I was done! But I suppose that's all they are. Each book's not long or large. They would not really register at all on any sort of Richter scale of literary works of art.

But somehow in the purposes of God they nonetheless can prove to be quite big. Who knows?

I read tonight late on about glaciers. How they are the most powerful force the world has ever seen. And how they're formed, by one small fall of snow upon another over time. And how as the snow gets deeper so the weight compresses, ice is formed, and then yet further falls of snow which turns again to ice.

And so on, over years. "Nothing happens for a long time, but when the glacier is sixty four feet thick it starts to move, and once it starts nothing can stop it."

I found the picture striking. One small fall of snow upon another over time. Little things.

I found it very striking. Exciting even. For the writer concluded, "I tell myself that little things matter. ... Keep it up for a lifetime or two or three, and then one day - it must - the ice will begin to slide."