Seeing the Small is Insight

Steinbeck once said he was born lost and had no interest in being found. I think I understand that comment.

I feel that way at times. Well, in the sense that it’s nice now and then to mentally, and if possible, physically, get lost and leave the chaos and the absurdity of the nonsense around us.

The moral and social fabric of our country is in alarming need of repair. One can only stand staring at it for so long before panic sets in and the ground opens up in some yawning gloom of darkness.

I picked up an acorn cap the other day while walking. You know that little textured hat that sits on an acorn? They are elaborately constructed if you take the time to look at them. And they all fit so perfectly on top of the acorn. It’s quite a tiny miracle when you realize that the acorn produces an oak tree.

The ancient mystics wrote, “Seeing the small is insight.” What could we learn from that?

We live in an obsession with bigness. Everything is bigger in Texas, we say. Why is that impressive? We have big buildings in big cities and though they are often incredible to look at, so what? When the Twin Towers were destroyed by terrorists we had to build a building even bigger. Why? Wouldn’t the 911 Memorial with its quiet, majestic fountain have been enough?

Did we have to cover our insecurity with a Tower of Babel? Is the giant Freedom Tower, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, that replaced the Twin Towers in New York City, a display of our ingenuity? Or is it an image of our fears of being threatened again?

Today, we have our giant missiles and huge machines of warfare that cost billions of dollars to maintain and operate. Are they necessary? What do they tell us about ourselves?

I read the other day where the Ford Motor Company will stop making compact cars and sedans other than the Ford Mustang. Every other vehicle they make will be an SUV or a truck. Smaller is out.

What is our compulsion with bigness? Is it supposed to somehow canopy our smallness? Are we not able to live in the reality of our genuine human limits? We do have them.

This is not to in any way diminish our potential, or to stop the progress of imagination and ingenuity. It is simply to realize there are times when we need to honor what is small and revere it and not be threatened by our own littleness in the context of our larger world. We are to be caretakers of it, not owners.

Are we in danger of experiencing what poet Adrienne Rich called “a life of passive drifting and dispersal of energies” because we want too much, because we crave the bigness of things instead of an expansive interior life?

Might the realization of our smallness be forced upon us? The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts a mysterious contagion is out there and it might eventually kill 30 million people across the world. It's called "Disease X" because they haven't yet identified it. But they believe it is coming. We have been able to contain the Ebola virus, MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), and the ZIKA virus. But the WHO says this new one has the potential of creating a catastrophic international epidemic.

Could such a disaster bring us all down to size?

Rumi wrote, “There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” All of them put us in touch with an extraordinary grandeur beyond ourselves.

Pick up an acorn and study its cap. Perhaps it would be a good thing to identify with it, to get lost for a spell in our smallness. So that before we are awed by a tree we understand the value of a seed.

If I had five minutes to evacuate--what would I take with me?

If I was told there was a bomb in my building and I had five minutes to evacuate my apartment I’d grab a grocery bag and quickly toss these items into it: 1. A photo of my grandparents, Mom and Pop and me, when I was 15 years old. I learned what love is made of from them. I learned what it is to be kissed on and hugged in arms so tender they felt like God’s arms. I discovered self worth from those two angels in human flesh. Of all the people in my life, they were the ones who made me feel I counted. Honestly, whatever capacity I have to love others came from them. 2. A sentimental, dog-eared, stars in the margin copy of Pat Conroy’s, “The Prince of Tides.” It is a book I have read three times and often return to for its wisdom. It is a harsh, profoundly tragic novel, the story of a family so broken and tortured by such flawed and wounded people that it is sometimes difficult to turn the next page. And yet it is the story of such Herculean courage and endurance that you want...

A Losing Strategy

OPINION PAGE (c) 2024 Timothy Moody The Republican strategy to mock and judge others has passed into some form of insatiable, all-devouring nastiness. It is so poisonous and contemptuous that it is now just evil. Republican Governor of Arkansas, Sara Huckabee Sanders, suggested to a crowd of Trump supporters Tuesday night that Kamala Harris can't be humble because she doesn't have any children of her own. When will Americans decide they don't want government leaders who are so arrogantly insensitive, as Sanders was, that they offend everyone? This crude, villainous rhetoric transcends political partisanship. It’s evil, dangerous, and insulting. The poet Ezra Pound’s brief lines are appropriate here, “Pull down your vanity, How mean your hates” To suggest that someone cannot be humble because they don't have children is not just a cheap political comment. It's an attack on a person’s humanity and worth. And that is now, and has been fo...

OPINION PAGE:

OPINION PAGE © 2024 Timothy Moody The apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump last Sunday afternoon at his Trump International Golf Club was foiled by the Secret Service. Details are still coming in about it, and it's not yet known why the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, apparently wanted to shoot Trump. The botched attempt was amateurish in every way, just as the one in July was by a kid 150 yards from Trump. Conspiracy theorists are having a field day. The former President is, of all things, blaming these attempts on his life with what he called the “violent rhetoric” of President Biden and VP Harris. Of course, that is absurd, especially coming from Trump, who has consistently been guilty of that very thing since he became president in 2016 and even before. His speeches, X posts, and comments on his Truth Social platform have been endlessly filled with threatening language and incitement to violence. He suggested those protest...

The Unclad Soul

Search This Blog