Once upon a time, a very long time ago, a sparrow looked at its friend, the dove, and asked a rather interesting question. “Tell me. What is the weight of a snowflake?”
The dove answered, “Nothing. Nothing more than nothing.”
The sparrow persisted. “In that case, please let me tell you a marvelous story. A few days ago, as I sat on the branch of a fir tree, close to its trunk, the snow began to fall — not heavily, not in a raging blizzard — no, it fell just like a dream, without a sound and without any turbulence.
I had nothing better to do, so I counted the snowflakes as they settled on the twigs and needles of my branch. I had counted exactly 3,131,624. When the 3,131,625th snowflake dropped onto the branch — weighing nothing more than nothing, as you say — the branch broke.”
Now, doves have been an authority on the matter of peace since the beginning of time. That dove sat for a very long time, as he pondered the words of the little sparrow.
Long after the sparrow had flown away, the dove spoke. “Ah! Now I understand. When one ‘nothing more than nothing’ is added to another ‘nothing more than nothing’ and another and another . . . change happens. Just like the 3,131,625th snowflake, one man, one woman, one girl, or one boy can make a difference. Yes. When I think of it that way, peace is possible.”