Bette Midler has a pet peeve.
It’s plastic bags that get caught in the branches of the trees in NYC’s parks. Plastic bags in trees drives me nuts too, so when I saw an article about “Bette Midler’s Bag Snagger crews,” I was intrigued.
It’s a pretty simple routine: people see bags snarled high up in trees and they call a hotline number with the location. Every day a crew of four heads out in to the city with one purpose, find and snag as many bags as they can in a day. They estimate it takes, on average, 10 minutes to free a tree of their bags.
Do the math; their work may never be finished. NYC has a lot of trees and even more plastic bags; there will always be more bags to unsnag.
But that’s ok, the point isn’t to lament that the work will never be done; the point is to do the work as best they can, branch by branch, tree by tree, day by day.
One branch, one tree at a time.
It’s simple isn’t it?
One person noticed a problem and used her gifts, in this case a love for NYC’s parks, (plus money and influence,) to address the problem and in the process, each and every day, New York City gets a little more beautiful.
Of course, Bette Midler could have taken on the grocery, drug and other retail stores in NYC and demanded they stop using plastic bags hoping that eventually the problem would be eradicated because the plastic bag itself would be extinct. That’s a huge job and not even a woman with the money and the influence of a famous entertainer could hope to get it done anytime soon. Now, I don’t know, she may be working on this aspect of the problem too, but the fact is, she didn’t wait, she took her gifts and put them to work right away.
The result? In NYC, one branch at a time, one tree at a time, the world is being changed.
Lasting change is like that, steady and methodical, step by step, branch by branch, tree by tree.
Ellen Bard is an author who has a blog entitled “tinybuddha: simple wisdom for complex lives.”
She recently posted an article called: “3 simple small acts of kindness that can make someone’s day,” begins with this Oscar Wilde quotation: “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.” One can intend to eradicate plastic bags from all the trees in NYC, but it’s accomplished one branch at a time, one tree at a time.
In the article Ellen shares the following anecdote:
“On a bad day recently, rushing down the road in Chiang Mai, Thailand, late for an appointment, I dropped my bag and things spilled all over the road. I looked at my possessions, spread out in the dust beneath me and held back tears. As I stood there, a Thai woman, tending a food cart at the side of the road, walked over and carefully helped me pick everything up. Then she smiled, patted my hand, and walked back to her stall.”
The Thai woman didn’t have the gift of money or power. But she sure did have the gift of kindness. And that kindness made all the difference in the world on that particular day, in that specific moment, for the author.
One branch at a time, one tree at a time, by using our gifts, we can change the world.
This is what Jesus is talking about in today’s excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world right after blessing those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, right after telling everyone within earshot that the world God envisions is not ruled by powers and dominions but by the meek and the humble; that the world, as God envisions it, is a world of love and justice and peace which is brought to fruition through regular old people. Folks like you and me.
We are God’s instruments, we are the salt that enhances God’s flavor, we are the filament that increases God’s light in this world. We all have gifts that contribute to the world God envisions, the world Jesus preaches about, we just have to use them.
Not using them is akin to hiding them under a basket.
Not acknowledging them is akin to denying them.
And it’s that very thing---hiding and denying all that we’ve been given by virtue of God’s abundant extravagant and never-ending Love---which frustrates and saddens God.
You see, all God wants us to do is to use our gifts—whatever they may be—to show people that God is Love and that this Love that is God is for everyone, everywhere, forever and always.
It’s not rocket science folks:
We are Loved and Jesus compels us to share this Love. Because when we do that, when we expose the Love of God through our acts of simple yet profound kindness, Love spreads and strengthens and grows.
And that’s the point.
We salt this earth and lighten this world, by Loving the unloveable, by embracing the untouchable and by standing up for those who have been knocked down.
One branch at a time, one tree at a time.
It’s simple wisdom folks:
Is there something wrong in our corner of the world? We have the power to do something about it.
We may not, in one fell swoop, be able to eradicate disease, eliminate hunger or stop all war. We may not, in one grand gesture, be able to cure global warming, stop graft and corruption or guarantee every child in this world the safety and security they deserve, but we can, one branch at a time, one tree at a time, one simple act of human kindness at a time change the world.
Amen.
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