Small things

An often quoted anecdote when talking about sins within the Islamic perspective is one about the dosa kecil and dosa besar - where at the same time that one strives to stray away from the dosa besar, one must not also lose sight of the dosa kecil, because despite it being 'small', when oft repeated, would care as large an impact as a dosa besar.

I'd like to think that the same works for good deeds too - that spending a million pounds donating to a charity and hope that carries you to heaven is just as effective as doing the small things consistently, like lifting a pushchair onto the bus, helping someone with luggage from the platform to the taxi stand (*note: running away with said luggage negates the good deed done), or just perhaps helping to carry someone's pile of marking to their car.

This morning on the bus to town, our driver saw a woman running along, and the bus stop was a few meters away still. He slowed down and stopped.. only for the woman to thank him profusely, but informed him she wasn't actually running for the bus. No biggie, said the driver, and drove on. He may have lost 30 seconds, but he won my respect, whether he realised it or not.