Small Things With Great Love

“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.” -- Mother Teresa

Last night Barry and I were in San Francisco having dinner with our friends from New Jersey, Suzy and Billy Schoonover. They were attending a large national conference on marriage for part of their ongoing education as couple’s therapists. They asked us to come and have a look at all the exhibits, thinking we might want to exhibit our work next year. We walked into not one but a series of large halls and immediately felt overwhelmed and very small. Inside there were over a hundred exhibits on marriage retreats and organizations. Some were huge organizations, with chapters in just about every state. Some booths had ten foot posters advertising all of their successes and the many marriages they had saved that year, along with professional displays of their many polished-looking hard cover books. Many booths also had large binders with their courses clearly outlined for sale at $50/binder.
We thought of our 5 little soft cover books on relationship, parenting and personal growth, the first three of which were self published and contain cute drawings made by our girls who were little at the time. We have never produced big flashy posters or binders with a course outline. We are not a big organization, boasting so many different chapter organizations. We are just us, Joyce and Barry, with a sincere dedication to helping people.

As I was starting to feel very insignificant in this large scheme of support for marriage and relationship, I remembered Mother Teresa’s quote. Our work is small in comparison to the vastness of the organizations we were seeing, and yet the smallness does not make it less significant. Last weekend we did a couple’s retreat at our home for just six couples. A couple came to that retreat who were on their way to getting a divorce. Each of them had hired a lawyer to proceed with the divorce if something didn’t happen at the retreat. The couple were able to open up to each other, and the rest of us witnessed a miracle as they recommitted themselves to their marriage. The organizations at this large conference were boasting hundreds, even thousands of marriages saved in one year---and we had one that weekend. We have learned over the years that bigger is not better. Small things done with great love, as Mother Teresa urges, makes all the difference in this world.

Recently we were working with two different couples. One couple was very rich, the other had little money. The husband in the first marriage worked mega-hours as CEO of his own company. Intensively traveling, he rarely saw or even communicated with his wife and children. For his wife’s birthday he bought her a very expensive diamond necklace and for two days took her to a fancy resort. Most of the time at the resort he was on his cell phone making business calls.

The other husband worked a simple job as a gardener. He spent a lot of time with his family and they lived a very simple lifestyle. For his wife’s birthday he brought the children to a friend’s home to play and spend the night. He then lovingly prepared a delicious dinner for her out of his garden, and gave her the gift of an intricately carved wooden necklace he had spent hours making himself. Which gift was the greatest? For me, I would rather have a small gift given with great love.

My father was a wonderful father. He gave himself totally to my brother and me. There was nothing he would not do for us. He was present at every sporting event, science fair, poetry reading, spelling bee or whatever we were doing. Once I had to make a small Indian village for a sixth grade project. My dad helped me for the entire weekend and my village was so amazing that the principal asked if they could permanently keep it on display at the school. He was also a wonderful grandfather to his seven grandchildren. Toward the end of his life he looked back and wondered if he hadn’t been much of a success as a father since he hadn’t saved very much money to pass on to his children. To me the money was insignificant. He wasn’t always perfect, but both my brother’s and my life were deeply enriched by all of the time and energy he gave to both of us. My father did small things for us with great love.

Whatever your financial status in life, or whatever work you do, know that you can make a significant contribution to your family and world by doing small things with great love. A word of appreciation, an act of kindness, giving the gift of time and the expression of daily gratitude to those in your life, can go very far. It is not about how much money we make or how big and powerful our work appears to others, it is about the love with which we put into each act of kindness toward another human being. Our friend Michael Stillwater has written a beautiful chant called “One by One.” The words touch me deeply: “One by one everyone comes to remember we’re healing the world one heart at a time.” Let’s do something small with great love, and trust we are changing the world in the process.