Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

Little Things are Great Things

Not long ago the newspapers carried a story headlined “Brazilians Wait Vainly for Ship.”

Visions of a great oceangoing liner being battered by a raging storm and then sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic flashed through my mind, before I read into the article.

It wasn’t a real ship at all that the Brazilians waited in vain to see. It was a spaceship from Jupiter that never came in. The news story, filed from Rio de Janeiro, said this:

“Thousands of Brazilians threw a party for some visitors from Jupiter early Saturday (March 8, 1980), but the guests failed to show up.

“Police estimated that as many as 50,000 persons held an all-night vigil and prepared a reception for a spaceship from Jupiter. But it turned into angry frustration and a mammoth traffic jam when the Jovian visitors did not land at a farm near here.

“The thousands of UFO watchers gathered at a farm at Caslmlro de Abreu, a small town 75 miles east of Rio, after Edilclo Barbosa, a rancher in the area, announced in a nationally televised program that the flying saucer would land there at 5:20 a.m. -- 3:20 a.m. EST -- Saturday. ...As many as 4,000 cars, buses and trucks from several Brazilian states came. ...

“A ‘Reception Committee’ prepared a cordial welcome. A luxurious issue of an encyclopedia ‘featuring the most complete information about our planet’ was to be given to the Jovians as a welcome present. It will be given to the town’s public library instead.”

“Good grief,” I thought as I finished reading the article, “how foolish can people be!”

Yet, don’t we all wait around for big events to occur?

We do. And there is much in life that we miss as we watch for these big things that happen seldom -- or maybe never -- and take scant notice of little things that occur every day.

Another way of saying the same thing is this: When we stroll through the woods, it is so pleasant to admire the grandeur of the tail trees, so easy to trample the violets blooming on the ground, their faces half hidden in last year’s leaves. We need to learn how to watch for those wild violets. It is very difficult to see the small things -- little opportunities for good, little kindnesses that should be done, little ordinary people who cry out for this good, this kindness we could provide.

Most of us would like to do good deeds. But we want them to be connected with some grand project that will have wide impact. Most of us make an effort to be kind to people, but all too often we seek out the clever ones who please us and amuse us and who can and will do something for us in return.

What we forget is that we human beings are all pretty much alike. We all long for love and attention and acceptance. We’re just like little house dogs that slip in beside the supper table and sit there on bind legs, with front paws lifted, to beg for crumbs. Crumbs of kindness.

Let’s not be found waiting around for fantastic visitors from another planet. Let’s be doing small things for the plain people already here.

The little things are the great things.

There is no insignificant person -- not one.

Published May 1980. Click your browser’s ‘Back’ button to return.