Small Steps, Giant Leaps

Can it really be that forty years have passed since the first moon landing and Neil Armstrong's words, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"? Forty years—it doesn't seem possible. We have seen the birth of the Internet, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the cloning of a mammal, and other remarkable achievements; we have also experienced AIDS, the Tiananmen Square massacre, 9/11 and war.

It seems to me that everything is relative. I have only faint recall of some of the events I've listed above, and as for the moon landing, I do not remember it at all. I was dealing personally with some extremely difficult "small steps" of my own and didn't see Armstrong's famous one. I am not alone in this response, for the memory of a near-tragedy (a child almost drowned) has, for some in my family, pushed out awareness of the space adventure that was happening at the same time. There were others, I'm sure, who could not just dismiss their compelling circumstances in order to give attention to something else, even though it was as epic as stepping onto the moon. Mothers were birthing babies, families were burying their loved ones, accidents and crimes and weddings and baptisms were happening as usual. Life just goes on.

So then, we cannot be casually dismissive of people who don't seem to know what's been going on. And don't be embarrassed if you feel you "can't keep up." One mother told me that she was so overwhelmed with caring for her disabled child that she was hardly aware of the Viet Nam war, at the same time other women were so concerned for a military husband or son that they could think of nothing else. It all depends on who you are and where you are and what is happening at the time.

The world won't stop to watch and wonder while I take the small steps of my life, even though they seem difficult or daring to me. But there is One who notices. "What's the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don't be intimidated by all this bully talk. You're worth more than a million canaries!" (Matthew 10:29-31)

Marjorie

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.