On getting small...

This isn't about grabbing a shovel to hide in a hole, it's about digging deep right where we are.

The world is wild. Perhaps it’s always been this way, but it feels particularly wild right now. Chaos and confusion around every corner.

For some, the right response is to get big.

I have a dear friend who has compiled decades of personal and professional experience into a powerful book about peacemaking — not passive peacekeeping, but assertive peaceMAKING — set to be released this fall. This is her season to get big.

A fellow Pensacola author and mama is taking on tariffs and taking the government to court. This is her season to get big.

Perhaps it’s your season to get big too. To start the nonprofit, to teach the class, to open the business. But if that doesn’t feel right, maybe you’re being called to get small.

Those two words have been rattling around in my brain for months. Every time I look at the world and see the millions of metaphorical fires threatening to consume us on all sides and wonder what in the world I can do, I hear them.

Get small.

In our world obsessed with metrics and measuring impact, it’s too easy to believe the lie that small is not enough. But the truth is, we are not all called to get big. Some are. But most of us are called to get small.

To invest where we have the most influence.

To dig deep in our homes, our families, our neighborhoods, our communities.

To have kind and curious conversations about what’s happening in the world with the people we love and the people we don’t.

To choose a book that challenges for book club.

To read stories to our children about people who look and live differently than they do.

To model kindness and respect.

To be present with the people around us.

To pay attention.

To look for opportunities to learn, to love, to listen without judgement.

To be tender to the suffering of those around us.

To show compassion.

To be curious.

To wonder why someone thinks that/says that/believes that/acts like that.

To remember that there are as many lived experiences as there are people on this earth.

These are the seeds that grow deep roots. These are the roots that grow strong trees. These are the trees that offer shade and produce fruit.

Goodness grows when we get small.