One of the great realizations I gleaned from my years studying the life and works of Rabbi Abraham Heschel is the power, imperative, and sanctity of the common deed, the seemingly simple gesture, word, or act so typically overlooked and often left undone.

We live in a time that celebrates the big—big wigs, big shots, big fish, big cheese, big enchilada, big deal—that is enamored with the spectacular, sensational, and dramatic, that is partial to pageantry. Suckers for splash and flash, we live in a time when it’s all about the Headline, the lead story, the attention grabber.

The wisdom traditions within authentic spiritual paths are counter-cultural and counter-intuitive in this regard. Their adherents are not taken in by the spin doctor’s of the dominant culture who obsess over prestige, power, and fame, who hawk Madison Avenue, fuss over the big man on campus, the belle of the ball, the cat’s meow, the grand slam.

What is emphasized instead is the hidden, humble, discreet, daily, unspectacular, ordinary, necessary, seemingly simple, beneficent act on behalf of the common good. Rabbi Heschel suggests that we should always regard ourselves “as though the world were half guilty and half meritorious. One (good) deed may turn the scale of the whole world on the side of guilt or on the side of merit.” He continues:

Every person participates at all times in the act of either
destroying or redeeming the world. The Messiah is in us.
This is why every child is of such immense importance.1

Every person and every act counts. The way we cultivate integrity, nurture honesty and dignity, develop character, seed and harvest deep sympathy, mutual care, and kinship, learn and live compassion, justice, and commit ourselves to the commonweal is through simple, heartfelt acts of faith, acts of hope, acts of love, constantly repeated.2 Earthshaking? No. Earth-saving? Perhaps.

This is the little way of St. Francis, Charles de Foucauld, Therese of Lisieux, Dorothy Day, and Mother Teresa. This, not proselytizing, is how we participate in the repair of the world, how the earth is christened, how we honor and beautify one another, how we revere God’s creation, how we are consecrated by love for love, how we live Jesus, and how we come to realize becoming human and becoming holy are the same thing.

Let’s join together in the conspiracy of incarnated love by consecrating the common deed and practicing regular, not so random acts of kindness. What makes an act holy? Nothing more and nothing less than doing or saying something good, just, kind, or loving for another by consciously dedicating it and intentionally connecting it to the movement and enlivening presence and direction of the Spirit. Those who practice consecrating the little word, the small gesture, the seemingly simple kind and thoughtful act, eventually don’t have to pause to mindfully dedicate it — it is within them already, and the choice they spontaneously make for the good of others and all of creation comes forth from this deep intention and becomes a vital part of the liturgy of life.

And,
yes.
It’s
as simple
and
as difficult
and
as self-implicating
as that.
And,
yes.
It’s
as important
and
necessary
as
breathing.

1 Abraham Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence, p. 237-38.

2 Dorothy Day, By Little and By Little: The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day, p. 329.

LISTEN to Lori McKenna Humble & Kind. Thanks Kevin Miller.

SEE The Miracle of Kindness (8 mins) by Chris Hedges here. Thanks David Norling.