Small-greatness

...stop and consider God’s wonders.(Job 37:14)

"In July 1933 while in the town of Murphy in Appalachian North Carolina, a musician named John Niles attended an outdoor fundraiser. In his unpublished autobiography, he wrote of hearing a song. A girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform. She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievable dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins. She was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled rather sadly and sang only a single line of a song.

The girl, named Annie Morgan, repeated the fragment seven times in exchange for a quarter per performance, and Niles left with three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material—and a magnificent idea." (A Kentucky Christmas by Ella George)

That fragment became the famous Christmas offering, I Wonder as I Wander. Performed by a poor girl in depression era Appalachia and later by the acclaimed Choir of Eton College, it speaks to us of the small-greatnesses that are often found in God's Story. A King in a stable, a King with one change of clothes, a widow's mite, a mustard seed. Greatness in disguise, walking humbly, speaking of splendor and breathing out wonder. Hinting at more. Simple mysteries.

William Blake said it to perfection, "To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour."

Let's take the encouragement offered in Job and consider His "wonderfullness." * Let's search out and esteem His small treasures and thereby glimpse His heart. Sometimes you have to glance down to look up.

What simple mysteries populate you life?
Are you looking?
For a certainty
they are looking for you-
those tokens of eternity.
You may need to
let yourself
do some wandering
to discover them.
Somewhere there is
a caterpillar
just made
for your palm.
Where can it be?
I wonder.

***********************************************************************

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus the Savior did come for to die.
For poor ordinary people like you and like I...
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-rqSiGvHQU&feature=player_embedded

*Wonderfullness is Kim-Speak