Hobbits, Valiant Mice, and Extraterrestrial Squirrels Will Save the World

Over this past year it's become more and more apparent to me how truly important small actions are. Everyone talks about it, a smile, a hug, a phone call to a friend, but just like any other action it takes time, patience, will, and sometimes courage to stop, step out of your comfort zone, and do it. I know. Every now and then I see someone and get the idea to give them a compliment, go up and talk to someone alone, roll down and talk to the homeless person on the corner asking for money and I don't. But, it's such a small thing.

A year ago I resolved that instead of telling someone I'd pray for them I'd do it right then and there. Those were powerful moments. But I've swayed from that lately. There's a guy at my gym who used to just be a lifter but he has since been an employee at the front desk and he has become a trainer. He is probably one of their best employees. When he's at the front desk he greets people and tells them by. When he is training someone he is attentive and focused on that person. I see the opposite from many other employees. I've wanted to pay him a compliment for a while. I have not, even when I was workout out right next to him this past week. Why? Discomfort? What's there to lose?

Literature has grasped this. We see in stories that it is the small things that are sometimes the most powerful. Hobbits helped a band of dwarves reclaim their kingdom and quite literally save the world from evil. A brave mouse was always ready for adventure and battle and would challenge others' cowardliness and call them into the challenge at hand. An extraterrestrial squirrel held Superman at bay. Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Reepicheep, and Ch'p, all tiny in stature, but stepped up to the plate when called.

We like to quote St. Therese of Lisieux and her Little Way, but sometimes it takes great courage, discomfort, and we don't always allow those to win out. When people are asked what they regret most in life it is usually the small things, not talking to someone, not telling someone they love them, not making that phone call, etc. And yet, who knows the power these simple gestures could have wielded.

"Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love." - St. Therese of Lisieux

Here are just a few things from/about a few tiny characters that have made big impacts:
Hobbits: 
"Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today; for they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt. They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, thought they were skilful with tools. Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of 'the Big folk', as they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find. They are quick of hearing and sharp-eyed, and though they are inclined to be fat and do not hurry unnecessarily, they are nonetheless nimble and deft in their movements. They possessed from the first the art of disappearing swiftly and silently, when large folk whom they do not wish to meet come blundering by; and this are they have developed until to Men it may seem magical. But Hobbits have never in fact, studied magic of any kind, and their elusiveness is due solely to a professional skill  that heredity and practice, and a  close friendship with the earth, have rendered inimitable by bigger and clumsier raced.

For they are a little people, smaller than Dwarves: less stout and stocky, that is, even when they are not actually much shorter. Their height is variable, ranging between two and four feet of our measure. They seldom now reach three feet; but they have dwindled, they say, and in ancient days they were taller. According to the Red Book, Bandobras Took (Bullroarer), son of Isengrim the Second, was four foot five and able to ride a horse." - The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

"My Dear Frodo!" exclaimed Gandalf. "Hobbits really are amazing creatures, as I have said before. You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you at a pinch." - The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

Yes, it's not from the book but it's so good:

Reepicheep:

"There Trufflehunter called at the mouth of a little hole in a green bank and out popped the last thing Caspian

expected - a Talking Mouse. He was of course bigger than a common mouse, well over a foot high when he stood on his hind legs, and with ears nearly as long as (though broader than) a rabbit's. His name was Reepicheep and he was a gay and martial mouse. He wore a tiny little rapier at his side and twirled his long whiskers as if they were a moustache." - Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis

"There are twelve of us, Sire" he said with a dashing and graceful bow, " and I place all the resources of my people unreservedly at your Majesty's disposal." - Reepicheep, Prince Caspian

"Sire," said Reepicheep. "My life is ever at your command but my honor is my own...Perhaps if it were your pleasure that I should be a marshal of the lists, it would content them." - Reepicheep, Prince Caspian

"I thought I heard someone laughing just now. If anyone present wishes to make me the subject of his wit, I am very much as his service - with my sword - whenever he has leisure." - Reepicheep, Prince Caspian

""Come back, Reepicheep, you little ass!" shouted Peter. "You'll only be killed. This is no place for mice." But the ridiculous little creatures were dancing in and out among the feet of both armies, jabbing with their swords. Many a Telmarine warrior that day felt his foot suddenly pierced as if by a dozen skewers, hopped on one leg cursing the pain, and fell as often as not. If he fell, the mice finished him off; if he did not, someone else did." - Prince Caspian

"If I were address peasants or slaves," he said, "I might supposed that t his suggestion proceeded from cowardice. But I hope it will never be told in Narnia that a company of noble and royal person in the flower of their age turned tail because they were afraid of the dark." (It is then mentioned that there is no practical use in entering the Dark Island) "Use? Use, Captain? If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honor and adventure. And here is as great an adventure as ever I heard of, and here, if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honors." - Reepicheep, Voyage of the Dawn Treader

"My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sins, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise and Peepiceek will be head of the talking mice in Narnia." - Reepicheep, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Ch'p:

Ch'p is an anthropomorphic squirrel from a planet with inhabitants of the same make up. After being imprisoned and sentenced to death by an invading army a Guardian of the Universe appeared and gave him a green power ring. After escaping and defeating the army he entered training to become a Green Lantern. Just check out this exchange between him and Superman. Vicious!

"Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love." - St. Theresa of Calcutta