“Little things recall us to earth.” – Charlotte Brontë.
I’ve always loved this line from Jane Eyre, the classic Charlotte Brontë novel. In the scene, Jane is pulled back into reality by the sound of the grandfather clock down the hall; she’s brought back to herself and her surroundings by the most mundane of sounds. This is a moment of practicality in the story, where Jane remembers her responsibilities and is no longer lost in her thoughts. For me as the reader, these words are also an invitation to simple, ordinary gratitude.
Though daylight savings time has taken away an hour of light from our evenings, it has afforded more daylight to the morning hours. 6:30 am is no longer a deep pitch black, and as I brew my coffee each morning, I look out the window at what I had been unable to see just a few weeks ago. The small sparrows and chickadees that frequent our birdfeeder are already chattering away, flying quickly from the feeder to the large branches of the nearby locust tree. The squirrels have seemingly endless energy, playfully flitting around the yard; every so often, one runs by with an acorn in its mouth. Steam curls off my coffee cup, the early morning fog dissolves slowly before my eyes, and the sacredness of the world is mine to behold today.
After a while, I hear a voice calling my name—my two-year-old son, letting my husband and I know he’s ready to get up. I pad down the hallway to his door, and when I open it he yells, “Hi!” in a voice that suggests he is as wide awake as the birds and squirrels. I lift him from his crib, and he smells like sleep and a bit like yesterday’s strawberries. We go to the couch together, his head nuzzling into my shoulder to hide from the brightness of the world outside his dark room. Together we enjoy the small delights of a new morning and watch the world wake up.
At the end of each day, my son continues his never-ending quest to find the moon—its place in the sky, its shape, whether it’s out at all. He, my husband, and I scan the night sky for that soft glow, and he tells us in his toddler way that there are stars out tonight. We watch him begin to experience awe, and slowly we are awestruck alongside him. In the still quiet of the early dark, I thank the God who created us in his image. I thank God for the ability to witness beauty that often fades into the background, and for the gift of beholding what might otherwise go unnoticed. These little things have recalled me to earth.
Holland Redinger is NCF’s regional coordinator of the Lakes and Plains region. She lives in Wisconsin.
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