The Weight of a Snowflake
Enjoy this winter parable! When we become discouraged by the seeming immensity of the task before us…remember this little fable about a conversation between two birds…a dove and a sparrow.
“Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” a sparrow asked a wild dove.
“Nothing more than nothing,” was the answer.
“In that case I must tell a marvelous story,” the sparrow said. “I sat on a branch of a fir tree, close to its trunk, when it began to snow, not heavily, not a giant blizzard, no just like in a dream, without any violence.”
” Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the next snowflake dropped on the branch (nothing more than nothing, as you say) the branch broke off.”
Having said that, the sparrow flew away. The dove thought about the story for a while and finally said to herself:
“Perhaps there is only one voice lacking for peace to come into our world.”
Whenever you think that
- your contributions,
- your acts of charity,
- your works for justice,
- your gifts of love, or
- your talents
are nothing, or small in comparison to those of others, remember that when one is added to another, and then to another, great things can happen…from “nothing more than nothing.”
maybe an avalanche of good?
(all from the weight of a snowflake)