The life changing power of the little things

I used to do a lot of coaching work at the Bank of England. One afternoon I walked out of that majestic building, crossed the road and began descending the steps opposite the Royal Exchange, down into the chasm of Bank tube station. sitting half way down the steps was a man begging for money. Just as I clocked him, another man, well-groomed in his city financial wizz clothes, rushed down past me and just bawled at the seated man, “Get a f**** job you sponger” and was gone. It felt violent and shocking. There was a time in my adult life when I felt one or two clicks away from the edge of being that man. 

Now try this story.

You are walking to work in the city and a woman, clearly desperate, accosts you on the pathway and begs you for help.

“Please sir my son is desperately ill in hospital and is dying. He loves music. Is there any way you could help me get him a trumpet because I think it would save him”.

You are in a hurry. What do you do? Keep going? Stop? Shout abuse at her?

We know about the rite of passage for young Jews called their Bar Mitzvah. The words mean Son of the Commandment. We wrongly hear the word ‘Commandment’ as meaning ‘rules’. Actually, it means commitment. ‘I commit myself to living a life in the light of a purpose greater than myself and once a week from now on (sabbath) I will take time to reconnect and recalibrate my priorities around this life purpose. What is less known is, or are, the Mitzvot. The Bar Mitzvah is the big picture commitment, but the Mitzvot are the single, moment by moment, decision by decision, single actions, to outwork your purpose. The little things. The reactions, the actions, the moments of passing a lady in the street.

As I listened to one of my favourite music tracks this morning[1], I was reminded of a true story, recounted by Derek Wyatt[2].

Every day in the morning Our Trev (Archbishop Trevor Huddlestone[3]) would walk to the Cathedral in Joburg for prayers and every morning he would lift his hat and say ‘’Good Morning”” to whoever he passed: black or white. One day a lady stopped him and asked for his help. She said her son was dying in hospital. He loved music and she wondered if he could find a trumpet for him to play. She was certain he would recover. The problem was Trevor had taken an oath of poverty as part of his role as an Anglican monk. It wasn’t a question of could he find a trumpet, it was also how could he find a donor to pay for it? 

He recalled he had once heard a Concert by Louise Armstrong in Cambridge, but by the time they had both got back to their college (I think it was Trinity Hall) it was closed and they had to leg it over the wall. Trevor wondered if Louis would have a spare trumpet. He called him in New York - he sent him a trumpet. The trumpet was given to the sick boy.

The boy in the hospital was a kid called Hugh Masekela. He recovered to become the greatest jazz trumpeter in the world (he died in 2018). At the memorial service for Huddlestone at Westminster Abbey, he played a piece to remember Trevor. Of course he used that trumpet!

It is the Mitzvot, the little things we do today, that will change the world for at least one person.

[1] ‘Stimela’ on Hugh Masekela’s Hope album

[2] Used with full permission from Derek

[3] Archbishop Trevor Huddlestone was a tireless fighter against apartheid in South Africa