Illustration by Deb Hoeffner
Yesterday for our Faith and Recovery session at Church we used a quote from Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. She says:
The quote fit well with some of us who are trying to live in the present moment but feel there is too much to do. Also many of us feel that our small actions do not matter much. When Dorothy talked about ‘one action’ she was not talking about voting or sending an email. She was talking about doing the works of mercy or trying to make a change in society.
I thought of this quote today as I was shuttling two persons back and forth to the same medical clinic, one in his teens and another in her late forties. They did not meet each other today as they had appointments in the same place but at different times and different offices. Yet they are connected to each other but my small action of driving each one of them to the clinic.
My four small garden spaces around my house are not connected physically but experience the same rain and sun and are connected by my gardening action on all four.
Cooking stew to go with Ella’s cornbread for my wife, son and myself was another small action I did today.
Also tonight I put pictures on the 2010 Homicide Vigil List at Mothers Against Gun Violence.
These small actions, gardening, cooking dinner, adding pictures to web site and driving two friends to the clinic are all small actions. But if they are actions of the present moment, with grace of God, they can multiply, just as Jesus did with the loaves of bread and fishes. Who knows, we might have another Miracle of the Leftovers.
Small actions can be big when they are done in the present moment and with love. Who knows what one person can do?
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