By: FATHER HAYNES HUBBARD
MY SON Caspian is a slitherer. Which is to say, when we put him on the floor, and if the floor is the least bit slippery, instead of crawling, he slithers. And he slithers very quickly indeed.
Upon release, unless we watch carefully, he is round the corner and into something. Anything. And sometimes that anything is not what he should be into.
So having a 10-month-old once again has reminded us of the need to pay attention to details. To small things. To what is on the floor, and what is down around our knees. Because if we don’t pay attention, he certainly will. And chances are very good that whatever it is will end up in his mouth. So for us, in our home, little things have become very important.
Which is precisely the same with God, I discover. For Him, little things are extraordinarily important. And He makes His presence known and felt in tiny places, when it seems as though the larger arena has been completely overcome – sometimes by evil.
We have been walking through just such an experience here in Luz these past months: evil has come upon this town, but God’s goodness is all over the place, in the cracks and in the corners. In the church building where so many many prayers have been offered, in the love given and received by strangers who have become friends, in the shared compassion of English and Portuguese communities for a couple in despair.
God’s goodness and light cannot be overwhelmed but it can be missed.
God’s love is such that He has created this universe with the precise thought that it would mirror Himself: that is, would be good and beautiful. And that it will grow in that beauty and goodness. Right down to the last detail. It is our endeavour to look for that goodness. To make sure the brokenness of this world: the evil, sadness, despair and simple banality which sometimes seem to overwhelm our surroundings don’t overshadow the beauty He has poured into our lives.
For little Caspian, nothing is too small for his attention and all merits his tasting it. For God, it is very similar. Nothing is too insignificant and nothing too awful that His goodness won’t be found to have penetrated it. We just have to have the eyes to see it.
Fr. Haynes Hubbard, along with Caspian and the rest of his family, lives in Praia da Luz. He is the Senior Chaplain for St. Vincent’s Anglican Chaplaincy, with congregations in Luz, Almancil and Monte da Palhagueira.
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