The Small Is Huge

As the massive scope of the coronavirus crisis continues to dawn on me, my thoughts are constantly with Side by Side and what it all means for our new community. To be honest, early on I felt some doubt, or maybe it was insecurity, about the significance of what we are doing, compared to the heroic hospital workers and grocery store employees and others on the front lines who are really getting things done. What were we getting done? How was the Side by Side community doing anything to combat this world-altering event? I realize that my doubt was in part because I felt helpless and didn’t like that feeling.

Josiah, on the right, with his friends Emily and Andrew.

But in recent days I am glad to say I have been encouraged by the generosity and humanity I have seen on display from friends of all abilities who are part of SBS. For sure, I’ve seen it during our virtual gatherings, but I’m thinking more about the spontaneous and un-programmed signs of hope - phone calls and letters, drive-by hellos and bike-by hellos, words of encouragement and vulnerability and shared sadness. One such moment happened to me yesterday - I was on the phone with my friend and SBS stalwart Josiah. It was his birthday, and what was supposed to be happening was I was supposed to be encouraging him, yet at the end of our conversation he said “You are held in my love” - and I thought that there couldn’t possibly be a better way to encourage and affirm another human being from far away than with those six words.

Maybe it’s a small thing compared to working in the ICU or researching a vaccine. But, as my newly favorite PNW writer the late Brian Doyle wrote, “The small is huge.” For us to be a community of people of all abilities in which such little-big glimpses of humanness can accumulate into a bigger picture - now that is a worthy thing.

Whatever the many outcomes of this virus, I’m quite sure loneliness - a struggle common to so many people with disabilities, through no fault of their own - will continue to overwhelm so many of us. SBS may not be able to provide medical relief or vaccine research, but we can, as a community of belonging for people of all abilities, be a powerful answer to loneliness in this new era.

My friend Brett just wrote an awesome article reflecting on what the Easter story can teach us about living during the coronavirus. He points out that the women who follow Jesus, such as Mary Magdalene, show small but powerful acts of care both during Jesus’s death and after, like visiting the tomb with spices to anoint his body. Their care does not directly bring about resurrection, but it does prepare them to see and experience new Life when it happens. This is a beautiful lesson.

We do not know what life will look like on the other side of this crisis. But the significance of a community like Side by Side is that we can care for one another in small but powerful ways that get us ready to see new life as God brings it forth.