Like many people, I have a morning routine that prepares me for my day. I take some of the same steps everyday with one of those steps involving coffee. Imagine one morning when my routine was rumpled because we were out of milk. Milk in coffee is essential for me, I cannot drink black coffee. After getting dressed I drove to my local coffee café, used my to go cup and settled back for my drive from Woodstock to Rockford.
As I slowed to enter the intersection near my house, I noticed a small sparrow sitting with fluffed out feathers right in the middle of the street. At first glimpse I thought it was dead and then I notice a small shudder. I pulled over to the side of the road, stopped traffic and bent down with cupped hands to move it from the street.
A I peered closer I noticed its tiny head was bloodied, as though some crow had been at it. I was holding up traffic, so I scooped up the little fella and as I did he flew away into the trees. My task accomplished I set off for work, however I could not get the sparrow out of my thoughts. I wondered what would have happened if I had simply gone on my way and ignored its plight. Its demise would not have made a ripple in the scheme of things. Most likely it will die from whatever attack left it bloodied, did my act of kindness make a difference? The metaphor was not wasted on me. Isn’t there a verse in the holy books that talk about sparrows and lilies?
I wondered, how many times have I simply found some reason to step over the need that was in my way? Often I am sure. I felt the growing number press on me, yet that morning in that moment I did act. I stopped my car and acted on the need of the other, the need of the tiny bird. I am not a saint, yet my day was free from feeling as though I should have done something in the face of doing nothing. Did the little sparrow live or die, I don’t know. I did my one small part and that was enough for me in that moment.
Every day in small ways we come upon “sparrows” and what we choose can and does make a significant difference. Every act of kindness vibrates into the universe: nothing goes unnoticed. I did not spend much time wondering on those moments I missed, they are in the past, I am grateful that today I was awake. The moment will come again and again I will choose, just as I choose every day who I will be in the world and what difference I am committed to making one step at a time. Here’s the one thing I am sure about and it is this – the world is full of tiny sparrows.