A Sliver of Significants

I was struck by the beauty of the moon at dawn today. Although it was a mere sliver, it was intensely brilliant, as though making a statement, or several statements.

As the saying goes, great things come in small packages.  What might appear to be insignificant occasionally surprises us. Take for example a puppy. A retiring couple we know recently adopted a puppy they’ve been eagerly awaiting; a rat terrier. She is so tiny we were sure to watch our step around her, terrified we’d break bones if she were stepped on. She might be tiny, but the impact this little dog is having on her new parents is enormous! Suddenly, their lives are no longer their own. Their sleep is constantly interrupted, they take her in and out, in and out, cheering on her tiny bowels and bladder. Hold her, console her, love her. She weighs five pounds. Her itty-bitty self is huge.

Same thing goes for babies, of course. We are fooled, as naive young parents, by the size of the person coming home with us. We think we’ll always be the boss of them, don’t we? Yet, as the years fly by, we are blown away by the impact this no longer tiny human being has on our lives. In retrospect, it’s unfathomable! How did such a tiny baby…?

And marriage: the ring is presented in a small box, a box that shouts “This is huge!” through a giant megaphone from a mountain top. It dares a woman to take a chance, turn her world upside down, inside out. Go out on a shake-y limb and hang on for years and years and trust that the limb will grow and thicken, becomes strong and weight bearing and hopefully…eventually…become safe!

It will take years, of course, but the ring, such a small symbol of an enormous commitment, will constantly remind her to look at the big picture in life, the life she had only a fragmented glimpse of, not in pieces, but as a whole. A whole life, not merely a glamorous day.

So, the moon was brilliant yet tiny this morning and it reminded me of a song about the “Wee Baby Moon” I used to sing to my kids as toddlers. It was a story-book sweet little moon. Yet, not really. Although it was all I saw, everyone knows it’s hugely significant. That moon didn’t fool me! It’s no different than all the rest of the small stuff in our world, like a spider that appears harmless or a tiny virus that causes enormous havoc.

It may be a mere sliver of a moon, like so many small seemingly insignificant things, yet it’s much larger than it appears.

Later,

Mary Ann