Do Small

Today Sally and I begin the long journey home from Pembrokeshire via her mother's in Ayr. It's been a lovely short break and a definite highlight was visiting  St David's Cathedral, both for worship and a guided tour. It's a place I have wanted to visit for a long time given my name, but never managed it until now. I know very little about Saint David/Dewi Sant, but then again, nobody does. That which we do know suggests that he is ill represented by those little embroidered  Christmas decorations that portray him in red bishop's regalia with a bushy white "Santa" beard. He was almost certainly a more modestly garbed individual, coming from the more ascetic Celtic monastic tradition, in fact I suspect that even the depicted icon recently installed on his shrine in the cathedral is too colourful. 

Famously on his deathbed he is claimed to have said "Do the little things" which is sometimes expressed as "Do small, build big." Thinking about that in a week which saw the death of Wendell Berry, who I was introduced to by a dear, departed friend, and who epitomised that idea in his life and writing, I wrote this. It is nowhere near as powerful as the many poems that have been circulating on social media in the wake of Berry's death (which I suspect he would have found ironic given his antipathy to technology), but its my small seed...

Do small.

Build big.

Sow seeds, so that 

other people might 

reap a huge harvest.

Plant saplings, so that 

those in centuries to come

may shelter from the storm.

Ask questions, so that 

other listeners might learn 

to push boundaries.

Tell short stories

that replicate and mutate

in their subsequent sharing.

Hum a different tune,

that might, (or might not),

become an anthem.

Walk off the path, 

so that others may find 

traces of another way to take.

Say “No, thank you,”

so that some can then

say “Yes, we will.”

Surrender freely,

so that others may 

eventually taste victory.

Pause, so that others,

and your own soul,

can catch up.

Leave room for silence,

so that new (and ancient)

voices might emerge.

Selah