Wild Bilberries

I walked up to Whitemoor from my home this month. There along the bridleway were thousands of little bilberries growing. I reached down from time to time to pick a few of the little globules of fruit. Not all were as sweet as I would have hoped, but they were a welcome addition to the walk. A funny little couple were filling plastic containers with them, ahead of some pie or crumble she was planning to make. I wondered if the time spent picking these tiny fruits was worth the trouble. So much work for so small a quantity of filling. Picking one raspberry or blackberry would provide as much volume as a half dozen wild bilberries.

Well as I write this, sniffily condescending toward that old couple who spent an afternoon of their lives trying to fill a delicious pie, they are sitting down to eat it. Who’s the fool now?

Even small spiritual exercises (such a simple prayers, reciting scriptures, little acts of kindness), are worth it. By themselves, they amount to little, but they please, I think, the great God, in whose name they are performed. Zechariah asks in 4:10a:

For who has despised the day of small things?