Saturday of Week 31 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
Philippians 4:10-19 | Psalm 111(112):1-2,5-6,8,9 | Luke 16:9-15
The man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great; the man who is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in great. (Luke 16:10)
The context of this passage centers on money and our relationship with it, but I think it also speaks to our relationship with our faith, particularly the little things like generosity, praise and reconciliation with God.
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I’ve written previously about my lazy college journey down the river of apathy, drifting away from the light of Christ. What may not be clear from that entry is that I didn’t just suddenly turn my back on God and classes. Rather, it was a slow retreat into the wilderness:
“I’m quite tired, so I’ll just cut this one class”
became “I’ll just spend the rest of the afternoon at the computer lab, those EE and AI lectures are boring, and this new Internet thing is cool“
became “hey, the Gulf War’s on, let’s stay home and see what’s happening on CNN”
Similarly, I felt blah one Sunday, so I called the college chapel to let the music director know that I wasn’t feeling well,
which became once a month, then every other week,
and eventually I stopped going altogether, and regularly dodged concerned calls from the chapel.
In both cases, I can trace my backsliding to a failure to set aside regular periods for study and prayer respectively. I’d hit the books whenever I felt like it, and said a quick prayer whenever I remembered. As you can imagine, those periods got further and further apart, and eventually evaporated altogether. Basically, I couldn’t even trust myself to get the little things done right.
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I’m sure you realized that the title for today’s entry is a play on Richard Carlson’s famous book “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and It’s All Small Stuff“. If you haven’t read it yourself, the subtitle “Simple ways to keep the little things from taking over your life” should be self-explanatory.
Now I’ll take that idea and reinterpret it into unrecognisability.
There are some little things that are absolutely critical to maintain our sanity and continued performance in life. Things like healthy meals, regular exercise and stepping away from our computers every half-hour or so seem so obvious…that we honour them by cramming down fast food and playing online games till the wee hours. I think these little things1 deserve to be sweated over.
Similarly, for our faith to remain healthy, we need to “exercise” it regularly through little things like prayer, scriptural reflection, and acts of kindness.
We may “backslide” a time or two, forgetting to pray, or grab a greasy burger after a very tiring day, but it’s not a big deal – we just need to get back into the “rhythm” at the next opportunity.
However, we shouldn’t expect to instantly go all-out on a new health regimen, whether physical or spiritual. Such a “big bang” approach often doesn’t last, and believing one can leap from zero to “saintly martyr” is wishful thinking at best.
Rather, just change one thing first, perhaps walking a few blocks or reading the day’s gospel reflection after lunch. Get used to doing it regularly, then add something else. Rinse and repeat. If impatience starts getting the better of us, this simple prayer by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry may help.
All this is what I call gently sweating the small stuff.
And once all this gentle sweating gets us to where we can trust ourselves to do the small stuff regularly and instinctively, then we’re more likely to tackle the big things rationally and faithfully…like cancer, or the temptation of ill-gotten riches.
Brothers and sisters, if you think I’m just speaking theoretically, here’s a list of the small stuff I’m currently sweating gently every day:
- Pray a full rosary on the first public transport journey.
- Clear my table at the hawker center, both before (if needed) and after my meal.
- Thank the hawker for my meal.
- Thank the cleaner for, well, cleaning.
- Thank the driver of every bus I ride in.
- Reflect on and write my thoughts about the next day’s scripture at night (i.e. this blog).
There’s obviously a lot more I can add, like thanking God first thing and last thing each day, or going for monthly confession. I’ll get to them, one thing at a time.