#SmallThingsGreatLove

I envisioned writing a lot more about the Small Things in Great Love initiative this Advent than I actually have. Turns out, these things I’m doing really are small. Really small. So small, in fact, that a #SmallThingsGreatLove blog post might typically look something like this:

I made cheerful conversation with the cashier at SuperSaver yesterday. The End.

See what I mean? Not a lot of meat there.

But you know, that’s okay. Not everything in life warrants a finely tuned story all tied up with a happy ending and a shiny red bow.

What I have learned in doing these small daily deeds is that this whole initiative has made me more intentional. It’s really easy for me to have very good motives – to desire to “love my neighbor” – but then fall short in the execution of that love. Keeping #SmallThingsGreatLove top-of-mind has reminded me to put love into action at least once a day.

Earlier this month I ran into my neighbor Mike at Walgreen’s. As we chatted amicably for a few minutes, Mike mentioned he’d been to three stores already in search of leaf bags. I advised him to try Ace Hardware. As I turned toward the automatic doors, though, it struck me. “Mike!” I yelled across the parking lot. “I have a ton of leaf bags in my garage. Don’t bother with Ace Hardware, just take some of those!”

I doubt I would have suggested that Mike help himself to my leaf bags if I hadn’t remembered the whole Small Things in Great Love. But that’s just it. This initiative has prompted me to be more generous on a daily basis than I am ordinarily. Mother Teresa’s words have inspired me to go the extra mile – or in this case, the extra inch (Mike, it should be noted, didn’t actually use my leaf bags).

It’s just leaf bags, right? It’s just a cup of McDonald’s hot chocolate. It’s just a thank you note to a stranger or a loaf of homemade banana bread for an elderly neighbor. All small gestures, most of them not even significant enough to warrant a blog post. But I don’t know. Something tells me these small, small gestures still make a difference.

“Let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love.” (1 John 3:18, The Message)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m convinced Jesus lives in the grocery store. SuperSaver on 56th Street in Lincoln, Nebraska, to be exact. I know, technically he lives everywhere  and is in all places and in all people. But he really lives in the grocery store. SuperSaver is Jesus’s tabernacle, his temple. He lives right there amid the StarKist tuna and the Hamburger Helper.

Last week a woman stopped me in the pasta aisle. “This may sound like a strange question,” she said, her parka still buttoned up to her chin, “but do you write for the newspaper?” I was surprised. In the three years I’ve been writing for the Journal Star, no stranger has ever recognized me or stopped me in public.

“I do!” I said, pleased with my teeny-tiny moment of fame. She graciously mentioned how much she appreciated the column, and we talked for a few seconds about how rare it is these days for a city newspaper to feature a weekly religion section. Then we went our separate ways – she toward the canned vegetable aisle, me toward the frozen foods.

Two aisles later I passed her again, and it struck me: the lady in the buttoned-up parka must have read December’s column, the one in which I wrote about doing small things with great love for each of the 24 days of Advent.

I stopped my cart next to hers. “I’m onto to you,” I said, smiling. “This is your small thing done in great love for the day, isn’t it?” She didn’t outright agree, but I could tell the way she laughed that it was. Stopping to tell me she enjoyed the column was indeed her good deed for the day.

This is all so very ironic, of course, because while I’d been pushing my cart up and down SuperSaver’s aisles, I’d been thinking about how I might accomplish my small thing. Turns out, this Small Things Great Love initiative is trickier than I’d envisioned. I work from home; some days I only leave the house to drop off and pick up my kids from school. I don’t have a lot of interaction with the public. I don’t have a lot of opportunity to love my neighbor – at least the “neighbors” who live outside my own home – but I figured the grocery store was a good place to start.

I love that the lady in the parka stopped to offer me a kind word. I love that the column inspired her to participate in the Small Things in Great Love Advent initiative. And I especially love that while I schemed how to accomplish my good deed for the day, God took me by surprise, showering me with great love on a Tuesday afternoon in the grocery store, just when I least expected it.