The weight of a snowflake

  I've begun attending Westmore Community Church at the bottom of the hill where we are living. It's a UCC congregation. Warm, fuzzy; with a calling toward the work of love and justice.

  Today's sermon, entitled, Keeping Promises, was based on the story of the flood, and the promises of God and the people of God to never destroy creation again. The question posed by the pastor was: what are you/we going to do to keep that promise no matter the temptation? Great question, especially for this period of Lent.

  She told us this story too - a parable that I'd never heard before but that has been told and retold in different versions. It reminds us that the temptation to say that nothing matters, is false. Each of us and each of our actions towards love, peace, and justice matters.

"Tell me the weight of a snowflake," a sparrow asked a wild dove. 

"Nothing more than nothing," was the answer.

"In that case I must tell a marvelous story," the sparrow said. "I sat on a branch of a fir tree, close to its trunk, when it began to snow, not heavily, not a giant blizzard, no, just like in a dream, without any violence. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch - nothing more than nothing, as you say - the branch broke off." 

Having said that, the sparrow flew away. The dove thought about the story for a while and finally said to herself:  

"Perhaps there is only one voice lacking for peace to come in our world."

Whenever you think your contributions, acts of charity, work for justice, gifts of love, or your talents are nothing, or are small in comparison to those of others, remember that when one is added to another, and then to another, great things can happen---from "nothing more than nothing."