Pay Attention to the little things.
A blessing for all who venture
Dear fellow pilgrim, and all who are new here to this space, welcome!
This week I unpacked a beautiful birthday gift: some days at the shore of the mighty Lake Superior. We found ourselves retreating into the bigness of the nature surrounding us and into the little things needed to find our center again. Breathing, walking, resting, playing, laughing, pillow fighting, non-doing, retreating.
So this (mid)weekly blessing comes to you humble and small, as do all blessings. May it pique your appetite for the little things around you, drawing you in to reflection, inviting you to slow down.
Little things
If the world around you
gets so busy
that you fear
to drown in the noise
retreat to the little things,
things your heart can capture
and hold in hidden chambers.
Don’t ignore the big things
but find your home in the small ones
like a walk along the water
refreshing your senses
giving life to everything,
both large and small.
As you do may you notice
that the little things move also the big ones
and with this insight, hope
builds its beginning
in the small chambers
of your heart.
AF 2021 / 24
May it be so and may peace abound within you, Almut with Chuck and little one.
PS: If you can, leave a heart, a word or a line which resonated with you in the comments, so we know you have been here :-)
In case you missed it
About Almut
Almut Furchert, Dr. phil., Dipl. Psych. is a German American scholar and practitioner, a psychologist turned philosopher turned writer, traveler, photographer, retreat leader and mother of a pre-schooler. She has taught and published on authors like Kierkegaard, Buber, Frankl, Yalom, Edith Stein, and Hildegard of Bingen. Almut is also a Benedictine Oblate and lives with her family in a little college town in MN.
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I love the idea of "hope builds" too. We call hope a virtue, but too often forget and think of it as a feeling. It can only be a virtue if we practice it. Regularly recalling ourselves to hope. Practicing the thoughts and actions associated with it in the face of despair. So it is a thing we must practice. But the phrase "hope builds" suggests something more: That perhaps the divine within us is also practicing her craft of greening power. And that it is not all up to us. Hope builds.
Your poem reminded me of the affirmation I have been meditating on this week! Thank you!