Small Great Things

Jodi Picoult used those three words for the title of her recent novel. They are borrowed from Mother Theresa’s credo: “Do small things with great love.” As I write, many thousands of people around the world are doing just that, and much more. It is the story of our time.

Today, though, I am going to tell a different story, related to that one, but a lot smaller. It’s about what I have learned precisely because of the pandemic, when, during the long stretch of days to come, I wanted to have something new in my life.

As I said, it is a very little story and also a local one. It’s about some small great things I have been witnessing as I discover more of the land where I have lived for almost fifty years. Until now the Concord that I have walked includes paths around Walden Pond and the Town Forest, trails at Great Meadows, strolls along the Assabet River near Pine Street and on Squaw Sachem Trail. And that’s about as far as I “went to the woods” around here, following Thoreau’s advice and enjoying every trip.

Now, though, many more people are also getting out and experiencing these familiar routes.  I sought places less crowded, quieter, where I might hear only nature’s sounds, where I could pause to inhale the soft wind. Thus, at the risk of these places also becoming crowded, I’ll tell you about one of Concord’s treasures and perhaps best-kept secrets. The Concord Land Conservation Trust is a non-profit group that owns 1000 acres of land open to the public; it has acquired it, acre by acre, over the last sixty years. There are miles of CLCT marked trails,  located in almost fifty parcels all over town, from the Carlisle border to Nine Acre Corner.

On this precious land I have found my small great things. In April, when trees were still bare and not many seasonal birds had arrived, there were thumb-size wood frogs quacking like ducks in the wetlands. Later that month, when the ground was still bare, it was easy to see the thread-thin stems and minute white blossoms stretching up from mosses. Jacks-in-the–Pulpit uncurled, promising that soon “Jack” would appear. It rained a lot in April, forming vernal pools, where I imagined tadpoles and salamanders-to-be beginning their microscopic life. Later in the month, I began to spot patches of delicate bright green leaves poking through the leaf litter. What blossom would they produce in a week or so? I would go back to see. Just as, on each of my treks, I want to spot the lady slippers. Last weekend., I found the first fiddleheads,

None of these discoveries is particularly dramatic or rare. They are simply small promises. The great things will come later. The newly leafed tree will blossom and attract a bee that will carry pollen to the flower in order to produce an apple. The unseen egg in the vernal pool will open for the salamander to escape. The woodland bush berries will tempt birds to eat them and the birds will then drop seeds somewhere else to sprout new plants. Fiddleheads will become great green and glorious ferns. Even the yellowish shoots of a skunk cabbage, one of the first indications that spring is indeed on the way, will unfold and emit its unmistakable odor for some purpose, although I don’t know what that could be!

Isn’t it possible to dream that during this time without a lot of hope, without an end in sight, something may be beginning, though unseen, unheard? Something small is being planted, something imagined is starting to take shape. The songwriter Natalie Sleeth put it this way: “In the bulb there is the flower, in the seed the apple tree,/ in cocoons a hidden promise butterflies will soon be free!/ In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be, / unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

It may be that an all-seeing God doesn’t work for you. Nature’s unfolding may be enough to resonate, especially now, with her next verse.

“There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;/ there’s a dawn for every darkness, bringing hope to you and me./ From the past will come the future; what it holds a mystery,/ unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.”

We’re crossing a bridge to an unknown future, what it holds, a mystery. Shall we cross that bridge with hope that some small great things will appear?