Beryl's Blog: The Weight of a Snowflake

What does God ask of us? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.

—Micah 6:8

This coming Sunday, Micah will be part of our Scripture reading.  It is a familiar one, complete with a well-known hymn from Voices United and it got me to wondering if the actions of just one person to live in justice, mercy and humility could possibly make any difference in the ocean of humanity?  I was reminded of a little story I found in the book One Hundred Wisdom Stories From Around the World.  The story was entitled “How Much Does a Snowflake Weigh?”  and I would like to share it with you.

          It was deep winter and the snow was falling steadily upon the hillside.

          The mouse looked round and caught sight of a tiny bird sitting, shivering, on a bare branch overhead.  “Hello Jenny Wren” said the mouse, pleased to find some company on this bleak day. “I just came up for a bit of air before I go back to sleep for the rest of the winter.”

          But it was so good to find company that for a while the mouse and the wren sat there together, huddled beneath the lowest branches of a pine tree, watching the snow falling and enjoying a little congenial conversation.

          “How much do you think a snowflake weighs?” the mouse asked the wren suddenly.

          “A snowflake weighs almost nothing”, the wren replied.  “A snowflake is so insignificant it carries almost no weight at all.  How could anyone possibly weigh a snowflake?”

          “Oh, I disagree”, said the mouse.  “In fact, I can tell you that last winter, around this time, I woke up from my winter dreaming and came out here for a breath of fresh air, and because I had no companions and nothing better to do, I sat here counting the snowflakes as they fell.  I watched them settling on the branches and covering the pine needles with a blanket of whiteness.  I got as far as 2,492,359. And then – when the very next snowflake fell and settled on the branch – the branch dropped right down to the ground and all the snow slid off it.  So, you see, just that one snowflake weighed enough to make the branch sink down and the snow slide off.  A snowflake does weigh something.  It does make a difference!”

The wren, who was only a tiny little bird herself and didn’t think she had much influence on the great big world around her, pondered for a long time over the mouse’s story.  “Perhaps”, she thought to herself, “it really is true that just one little voice (one little action) can make a difference after all.”                           

 (source unknown)

Let’s go out and make a difference in the world!

In peace,

Beryl