The power of feeling very, very small
In memory of a friend
I once attended a church service in which the pastor used a large coil of string to illustrate the concept of eternity. While he held one end, he asked a congregant to unravel the other down the aisle, away from the podium. The man kept unrolling until he reached the end, halfway into the church’s front lobby.
“See this?” the pastor asked, pointing toward the length of string. “This is eternity. And this,” he said, lifting his thumb and forefinger squeezing the end, “This is your life. It’s just a tiny part of that long string.”
The message was unmiss-able: Life isn’t about you. It’s about God. So use God’s eyes to see beyond your individual desires and problems. Take the long view.
I haven’t been a believer for many years now, but that illustration still hangs with me. In moments of both profound joy and devastating loss, I find myself returning to this image of the string—this reminder that our individual lives are simultaneously tiny threads and essential parts of something vastly larger.
I don't need religion to feel the weight and significance of a lengthy or even eternal perspective. Think about the awe that washes over astronauts who look back at Earth from outer space, often called The Overview Effect.
Or the fearful expansiveness of encountering the Grand Canyon. Or the transcendence of hearing music improvised by a gifted player in a state of flow.
Or the birth of a baby. Or death. Or love.
If you’ve experienced any of these up close, you understand the power of feeling small. It's a curious alchemy of pain and pleasure: the pain, perhaps, of remembering you're not in charge, you can't stop time or control much of anything; and the pleasure of savoring whatever you can, however fleetingly, of relinquishing outcomes and letting the cards fall where they may. This smallness doesn't diminish us—rather, it connects us to something larger, something that continues beyond our individual experiences, something that allows us to hold both boundless grief and unexpected joy in the same moment.
The control conundrum
For most of my life, I’ve tried to be the kind of person who finds pleasure in the unexpected—a serendipity-seeker or go-with-the-flow-girl. Someone who can just let go and have a good time. Someone who listens to Bob Marley. Someone easy to please. Full of perspective.
It’s only in my late forties that I’ve finally accepted I’m constitutionally incapable of becoming this person. If there is a flow, I cannot go with it.
But if there’s a plan to make or research to conduct, I’m like a pig in mud. I really, really like knowing what comes next. To me, getting “on top of things” is like getting high (and it’s a lot more socially acceptable.) Control just feels really good.
There’s a flip side to this, though: feeling on top of everything also makes me feel responsible for everything. An astute therapist picked up on this once and told me to relax and just let gravity do its job—as though I believed that by sheer force of will I could keep everything attached to the ground. It’s a ridiculous idea, of course, but she wasn’t wrong. My muscles immediately loosened.
Grief and grace
When I called my friend Kacey recently, I was reminded again of the strange power that comes from feeling small. Her husband Nick died last week of a rare cancer at 43—an age that feels impossibly young, a life cut short in the middle of building a home, raising three children. What struck me most wasn’t just her grief, which flowed naturally and without restraint, but how it intermingled with joy when she spoke about their life together.
“I'm so sad,” she told me between tears, “but I'm also so grateful for every moment we had.”
Her voice strengthened when she talked about their children and how simple and solid their faith is that they’ll see their dad again. Then it would break again when she remembered Nick wouldn’t be there to hold her hand or help mow the grass. This flowing in and out of opposing emotions wasn’t chaotic—it was a natural, healthy response to something that, to me, appeared ludicrously unfair.
Kacey wasn’t trying to control her grief or package it neatly for my benefit or anyone else’s. She wasn’t pretending to have perspective or forcing an artificial silver lining. Instead, she was allowing herself to feel small against the vastness of life’s mysteries while simultaneously embracing the significance of Nick’s life and their love.
The long arc
When we got off the phone, something drew me to the words of the 19th-century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker (later famously echoed by Martin Luther King Jr.) about the moral arc of the universe:
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”
There’s humility in acknowledging we can’t see the entire arc, that our individual perspectives are limited by time and experience. Yet there’s also power in trusting that even with our limited vision, we can sense the direction toward which everything moves.
Kacey doesn’t know why Nick died so young. She can’t see the full picture of what their children’s lives will be without their father. But in allowing herself to feel small against the vastness of these unknowns, it looks like she’s found a strange kind of freedom—the freedom to grieve honestly, to celebrate joyfully, to release the illusion of control without abandoning hope.
Perhaps that’s the gift of feeling small: not diminishment, but perspective. Not helplessness, but a more open relationship with reality. Not resignation, but the ability to hold both delight and discouragement in the same fragile human heart.
I will always struggle to go with the flow—this is a fact. I’ll never stop researching or planning or trying to be on top of things. But Kacey’s example reminds me that when the inevitable waves come that I can’t control—when life asserts its vast, unplumbable mysteriousness—there is strength in acknowledging how small I am, in loosening my grip, in trusting that even when I can’t see the entire arc, I can still divine its direction.
Finally, a song
In college, I sang a choral piece that I’m convinced changed my body chemistry forever. It’s called Os Justi Meditabitur, written by Anton Bruckner (1824-1896), an Austrian composer whose soaring harmonies belied the deep tragedy he experienced throughout his personal life. At age 13, he lost his father and had to move from the family home, was hospitalized and restrained for obsessive-compulsive disorder, suffered from lifelong criticism and insecurity when it came to his music, and struggled with heart disease as a result of alcoholism.
By short-term standards, Bruckner’s life was a blip, a failure. And yet, exactly 100 years after his death, a five-minute piece of music he composed became a touchstone for a young, uncertain woman just when she needed it most, halfway around the world.
And then, 20 years later, she shared it with friends she believed would appreciate its complex, sorrowful elegance.
You just never know how the big picture is taking shape. Until we get the wide view, perhaps what matters most is trusting that our tiny threads—even the broken and frayed ones—are somehow necessary to the tapestry that continues to unfold, even long after our time is up.
With love and gratitude,
P.S. Nick Ciufo’s memorial will be held this Friday, May 2, 2025, starting with a 12 pm Rosary at Sacred Heart Church Red Bluff, CA, followed by a 1 pm Funeral Mass at Sacred Heart Church and graveside burial following mass at St. Mary’s Cemetery. A reception will follow at Sacred Heart School Parish Hall. All are welcome.
Such a beautiful tribute; and that song—transcendent <3