The Next Little Thing

So here we are, challenged this week to spend time in our very own personal field of wildflowers, to reach out and let God embrace us. In the words of my long-time favorite book, “I think I can; I think I can: I think I can. . . . .”

But I have to admit it: this is no easy day to be open to a soothing or strengthening embrace. Everybody out there is working hard to remind us that each of us can make a difference. I remind myself, of course, that the difference I can help make is in the World and not the Kingdom.

But maybe not . . . . Maybe the real difference we can each make is not in our vote, but in our voting – in our willingness to do our very best to care enough to bring our Eyes for the Kingdom to living in the World, one little action at a time.

It’s so easy to think about – to long to achieve – the grand gesture, the Next Big Thing that captures broad attention. But most of us don’t live there. We live here, where our lives touch a relative handful of other lives. But each of those lives matter, and each time we touch them it counts.

Maybe today, instead of failing at the challenge to get away, I should just let myself succeed at doing my best to reach out and touch with the best of me – to be a tiny little Kingdom light in that long line of things to do that comes with living in the World.