Just take a pebble: Few things occur in utter isolation

"You have a splendid grasp of the painfully obvious."

A seminary student once said the aforementioned in my presence to a professor, in an act of brazen courage and sheer stupidity. Some things are, to put it colloquially, "as obvious as the nose on your face." Many times we don't realize what is right in front of us, though. Our lives get busy or we become so narrowly focused that we miss what's happening.

One thing that is painfully obvious is the interconnectedness of all things. No, I'm not talking theologically now; this is not a monograph on pantheism. In terms of everyday observation, it seems clear that very few actions happen in utter isolation. What I do, or fail to do, affects you -- and the reverse is also a given. In those moments when our gaze is somewhere other than our navels (difficult today, given the ubiquitous nature of cellphone usage) we can say with some confidence that when one thing happens, it affects other things.

Examples are legion.

Oklahoma State basketball player Marcus Smart pushed a fan after falling into the stands at a recent game at Texas Tech University. The push took all of one second, yet the ramifications of that action have been felt not only in Lubbock, but all over the nation. The one-second push has ignited a conversation about overzealous fans, about finely tuned athletes unable to control their emotions, about racism, about a culture capable of instantly replaying unfortunate moments over and over on the Internet. As a stone tossed into the water creates a ripple that spreads geometrically outward, so too does the action of one thing affecting other things.

Many months ago, at my place of employment, Chateau Girardeau, some residents gave a talk about monarch butterflies. I showed up to support the residents, not because I was particularly enamored by the subject matter. In a matter of a half-hour, I'd changed my tune.

Monarch butterflies are among the most amazing of God's creatures. They migrate to Mexico each winter from as far north as Canada, a trip that north to south is over 2,000 miles in length. Without employing navigational devices save for their own instinct, these butterflies return to the same tree groves that their relatives abandoned the previous year. As St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan points out, (he's also a butterfly fan) the butterflies come back to the very same trees their parents left.

When they descend on these trees, it's a swarm unlike any other I've ever seen. As McClellan put it, "thousands and thousands of butterflies [hang] from the fir trees in clumps like living ornaments."

One thing affects another. Apparently there are a lot fewer monarchs in those Mexican mountain groves this winter as compared to last -- about half as many. Reason? When in doubt, check the food source. It seems a significant amount of pesticide is now being used which has killed off milkweed, a monarch's main nutrition. Ripples.

One thing affects another. Even a simple act, the way you and I treat a convenience store clerk, has ripples. A surly, sullen attitude perhaps influenced by the ongoing bitter cold may very well affect how that clerk treats other customers.

Walter Wangerin, in his seminal book, "Ragman and Other Cries of Faith," puts the idea of ripple-making well. Each of us, Wangerin writes, has a choice in dealing with someone else. We can either build them up or tear them down. What choice will you make today? Will the ripples you make with your stone help or hurt? One thing does affect another.

I do have a splendid grasp of the painfully obvious.

Dr. Jeff Long is executive director of the Chateau Girardeau Foundation and teaches religious studies at Southeast Missouri State University.