the little stuff

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The other day, I was talking with my neighbor, Doreen, as she surveyed a small garden she is creating. I asked her about the Croc shoes she was wearing -- how did she find them? She said they made her feel as if she had died and gone to heaven -- they were that comfortable. "In the end, it's the little stuff that counts," she said.

The little stuff.

Today, I will go out and clean the zendo in preparation for sitting tomorrow. Donna, another neighbor I like and one whom I once invited to come over and sit if and when she felt like it, decided to take me up on my offer. It was a casual offer, nothing profound or weighty ... just one friend to another. Little stuff -- same as the dirty jokes we tell each other or the common laughter we can share.

Little stuff ... not the profound-importance, deeeeeep-meaning, you-gotta-believe stuff. Not making a killing in the stock market or shoring up social standing or wrapping ourselves in wise or savvy nostrums ... just the little stuff.

And this evening, with the family headed to New Jersey for Easter, I have been invited to John and his lady friend's house for supper. (If you cook it, I will come. :)) John came to the zendo pretty consistently on Sundays for four or five years. It was important for both of us but now he has a busy law practice and, well ... a life to lead. But we will have supper and I imagine that will be very nice.

The little stuff.

I spent a lot of years nagging at spiritual endeavor in the ways a dog might nag a bone -- twisting it this way and that, twisting myself this way and that, growling and savoring. I was never very good at it, but if I had been good at it, how could I ever have hoped to be any good at it? Some of it stuck, I suppose, and some of it probably flew right over my head and heart. I am glad I did it and it was worth it, but what, exactly, did I do? Honest-injun, I don't know. Perhaps it would have been easier to explain if I had done more big stuff -- climbed Everest or swum the English Channel or executed multi-million dollar deals or been a polygamist or something.

The little stuff.

Doreen said that the only draw-back with Crocs is that your feet sweat since the shoes are made out of some synthetic, plastic-like material.

Well, maybe I will buy a pair. Maybe not.

Don't sweat the little stuff.

Or the big stuff either.
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