Faces on Faith: The quiet power of small kindnesses
There is a temptation, when we look at the size of the world’s troubles, to feel that our lives are too small to matter. The headlines are large. The needs are large. The problems are large. So it is easy to conclude that only large gestures — grand plans, big budgets, famous names — can move the needle on anything that matters.
I don’t believe that. And I don’t think most people of faith do either.
The anthropologist Margaret Mead put it best: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I love that quote not because it is inspirational in a greeting-card way, but because it happens to be true. History is not, in fact, made mostly by the famous and the powerful. It is made by neighbors who noticed something needed doing and did it.
Here on our island, I see this play out constantly, in ways so ordinary they rarely get called “faith in action” at all. A casserole left on a porch after a diagnosis. A ride offered to someone who no longer drives. A retired teacher who spends Wednesday afternoons helping a child sound out words. A shopkeeper who quietly extends grace to a customer having a hard month. None of this makes the news. All of it changes the world for someone.
This is, I think, the deepest truth of the spiritual life: that love is not primarily a feeling but a practice, and practices are built one small, repeated act at a time. Scripture doesn’t ask us to solve every problem on earth. It asks us to feed the hungry person in front of us, to visit the sick person we know, to welcome the stranger at our own door, to stand up for those who are being put down. The scale is deliberately human-sized — because we are human, and this is the size at which we can actually love one another.
I’ve watched this principle work itself out in our own community — in efforts as simple as neighbors showing up for local businesses and for each other, one small, faithful gesture at a time. No single act among them was dramatic. Together, they are the fabric that holds a place like Sanibel together.
So here is my invitation to people of every faith and no particular faith at all: don’t wait for the grand gesture. Don’t wait until you have more time, more money, or more certainty that your effort will matter. Mead was right — it already is the only thing that has changed the world. Somewhere today, someone near you needs exactly the ordinary kindness you have to give. Give it. Trust that it makes a difference — because it always has.
The Rev. William “Bill” Van Oss is the rector at Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church.