small letters

I seemed to have a mountain of mail to attend to today. Well, mail and all sorts of admin stuff that required some urgent attention.

The backlog there is from a couple of weeks like the last two there've been when there's been barely a moment to breathe. It all mounts up quite quickly: and it needs to be done.

I don't know how many letters I had to post by the end of the day. A lot. And they all take time. And a load of phone calls as well. The e-mails, too. And some forms to be filled in by me.

And a trip to the school to collect from there a memory stick with a stack of photos to be put on a powerpoint file for the service the school is having here on Wednesday. There must have been close on 50 photos, I think, each to be put on a separate slide.

It's worth it, of course: the families all love it when, coming in to the service, they can see these varied pictures of their children hard at work (and having fun) at school.

But, again, it all takes time.

People ask me what I do - and there isn't a single answer. 'Making up powerpoint files' sounds no more impressive than 'doing a load of admin' as the way I've spent my day.

And yet that's how it often is whole big pile of little tasks that must be done. The tiny wee strokes of the pen which help create the picture that's being drawn.

And all of that before I get down to preparing the material for the services this week. Wednesday's 'double whammy' (the school are first and then the lunchtime service): and the two upcoming Sunday worship services as well.

I remember someone saying once it's the little things that count. Small, inconsequential little things that in themselves are nothing much at all. But integral to something much, much bigger.

I'm reminded of something that C S Lewis once wrote.

"Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see."

Sometimes people just can't see the big picture. Sometimes it's the tiny, little courtesies, for instance, which help folk see the massive, great good news of Jesus Christ.

None of the smallest tasks we do is ever insignificant.