little big things

Daffodils

I wander'd lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company!

I gazed - and gazed - but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills

And dances with the daffodils.

 ~ Wordsworth

Friday morning found me carpooling with a friend to a memorial service ... her yard was aflutter with dancing daffodils and she mentioned that they where the prodigy of one very small florist pot, given to brighten her room during a hospital stay long past.  Wow.

Sunday's sermon was on The Sower (remember - Parables ... and without much on the sermon specifics, a main point for me was that the Parable focused on the Sower (who is Christ) rather then the various types of soil (which would be us and I smiled to remember we are but dust ... ). 

Behold the Sower ...

3 Then he spake many things to them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow.

4 And as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up.

5 And some fell upon stony ground, where they had not much earth, and anon they sprung up, because they had no depth of earth.

6 And when the sun was up, they were parched, and for lack of rooting withered away.

7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up, and choked them.

8 And some again fell in good ground, and brought forth fruit, one corn an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold.

9 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

(Matthew 13)

 And the Pastor concluded with the idea that is expressed in v.8 and I thought of all those daffodils.  A tiny container of something intended for good ... just a little social gesture really ... and it has become a gift to everyone who passes by (and she offered to share a "start" with me). Spiritual things may be like that.


Here's the idea ... Someone did a nice thing.  What is cool about it now, several generations past the actual act, is what became of/from/because of it.  What became ... the good which was created is the source of joy.  
I think when someone does something that is especially meaningful it's good to be thankful for "the joy" and to recognize with your heart that some gifts (of joy) pass from God's invisible hand through the hands of a person towards another (and the actual token may be entirely incidental to the larger "good gift"). Thank the person of course, but don't get hung up on / wrapped around the axle of the deliverer of a gift (and badger them to death for even more cool stuff  ...).  Be careful to worship the Deliverer of every good thing not the deliverer of the good thing ... when the gift becomes "more" it's probably a bigger deal then a nice little intention tossed towards something.

James 1:17

1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

17 Every good giving and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the [a]Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither[b]shadow of turning.

Footnotes:

1. James 1:17 From him who is the fountain and author of all goodness.
2. James 1:17 He goeth on in the metaphor: for the sun by his manifold and sundry kinds of turning, maketh hours, days, months, years, light and darkness.