The Combined Weight

Some friends from my congregation once gave me a short but powerful parable written by the Lutheran pastor, Gene Thiemann. It was titled, “The Mouse and the Snowflake.” It goes like this: “A mouse once asked a dove to tell him the weight of a snowflake. ‘Nothing,’ was the answer. But then the mouse told the dove a story.”

“‘I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow, not heavily, not in a raging blizzard, but just like in a dream without any violence,’ he said. ‘Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles. The number reached exactly 3,741,952. When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch, weightless as you say, the branch broke off.’”

“The dove thought about the story for a while and then mused, ‘If something as light as a snowflake can break a branch with the combined weight of many, perhaps the combined weight of people working together can also make a difference.”

Sometimes we think that our small actions won’t matter. Sometimes we think that our small gift, our small action, or our few words won’t make a dent. But the parable is true. The money we give, the actions we take, and the words we say add up. 

Mother Teresa once said, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”

Let us pray: God of love, may we be generous as you are generous. Take what we have to offer, bless it, multiply it, add to the love and generosity of others, and use it as an instrument of your love for a world desperately in need; through Jesus Christ in whose name we pray. Amen.