The Kingdom of Small
After Rodney prayed over us, we dispersed from the circle in anticipation of the show shortly beginning. His affirming words helped, but I was still feeling a bit frazzled and anxious. I knew what I needed: a moment to myself and to mentally run through each of the dances once more. And then, my own prayer.
Before I could make good on this plan, she wobbled up to me. Plakina was her name. For the two years that I was on the Longwood Company of Dancers, she was there. She didn’t have an official title, she wasn’t even paid, but she was a presence you could count on. She was always tucked in the back, dancing along with us, providing unsolicited corrections when you least expected it. I leaned in, due to the drastic height difference and because, for some reason, she was whispering. You. Dance. Small. Huh?, was my response. You. Dance. Small., she repeated.
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I have been inspired by Stephen Curry’s documentary, Underrated, on AppleTv. At the end of the documentary Stephen Curry asks us, and himself, How did I get here? He goes on to say, If you walked into a gym and saw me 20 years ago, there’s no way you would think any of this was possible. And that feeling of being overlooked or underrated will always be part of the drive that keeps me going.
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Longwood, a small liberal arts University in Farmville, Virginia—a place that became the incubator for illuminating the power and potential within me. I arrived there with stern intentions to transfer to somewhere big, only to have my heart unexpectedly swayed to do otherwise. And it was that small Church, tucked deep away in the woods along the back roads of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, Mt. Nebo Baptist Church, where I would learn the hymns that would later breathe in me the Faith and grit I would need each time I felt like quitting at Longwood. We’ve come this by far by Faith, I would sing, remembering how I sang it on the choir as a kid. I would sing and encourage myself to keep pressing forward.
It was a quick, and seemingly uneventful, trip to Washington, D.C. two weeks after graduating Chiropractic school that led to this small moment of reckoning as I walked the streets of the Shaw neighborhood: this is it, this is the place. Two nights later, on a Monday, with just ten minutes remaining until we closed, I served a man who just so happened to live in Washington, D.C. and who, just so happened, to know a Chiropractor in the city. That conversation took place at a small restaurant on Chincoteage Island, Bill’s Seafood. The next day, after he sent the introductory email, the Chiropractor would confirm that he was indeed looking for an Associate. A week later, I was back in D.C.
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You. Dance. Small., she repeated.
Yes, I knew small. Small had brought me there. Small has brought me here, it’s once again been my chaperone through another year. Small has shielded me against quitting, against the overwhelm…the relentless pressure.
Yes, I knew small. And small has always been enough. Small has given me hope, small has been a currency supplying each day with the next steps towards all that I am seeking to accomplish, to the places my soul is leading me. Small has offered me peace when thinking too big or seeing too far ahead has felt dangerous and discouraging. Small moments of inspiration. Small amounts of Faith that continues to endure the course of my life. A small circle of people who have stood as my mirror, in times when I was blind to the my own strength of heart and courage. Oh yes, I knew small.
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As you begin to put words to where this year has taken you, resist the need to over look small. Resist the need to think big is always and only better. For that matter, keep the two separated, one is a fruit and the other a vegetable. Small is the steps that we must each take, towards any vision…towards anything that we wish to accomplish. Small is the how. Small is the way we get there, to big…to the vision…to the end. Small is the practical steps that makes anything not only possible, but manageable, hospitable.
2023 may have been the year you finally took steps towards your business, a vision, or project that you’ve had in your heart and mind for years. You may have taken small steps to redirect yourself way away from a relationship, a pattern, or lifestyle that no longer serves you. You may have begun to soften your walls of defense, learning the power in being vulnerable with yourself and others. Perhaps your steps, this year, have been small ones toward seeing something true about yourself, small steps towards some form of acceptance, understanding, and/or forgiveness. Maybe you’ve reopened yourself to some unfinished grief. You may be finding it hard, even, to know what small steps you have taken, as yours may have been the ones taken inwardly...underground and below the surface. These kinds of steps are the hardest to quantify, the ones taken by the heart, but are equally as important to acknowledge and appreciate.
Embrace each of the steps you have taken this year, towards yourself. Whether it’s an inch, centimeter, or millimeter; whether they have been inwardly or outwardly focused, embody them just the same. Make sure you remember, you honor, you call out how small has brought you through, how small has been the light of hope guiding you towards the bigger picture you have for yourself…for your life.
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That night, as I laid there on the floor preparing to dance for the last time, I realized how she was wrong. I wasn’t dancing small, I was paying homage to it. I was dancing for small, for it was the reason I’d be walking across that stage in just a week’s time. I now knew small to be a kingdom, a sea of everlasting abundance. Small had been my cocoon and it was now time for me to leave its haven, as its ambassador. I’d learned, and I’d make good to remember, to embrace the power of small, to trust its shepherding capacity, in order to achieve more—immeasurably more.