Two writers from very different
times have touched me this week in leading me to reflect on my place in the
vastness of Creation. Julian of Norwich, a late 14th-early 15th
century mystic wrote:
“And in this he
showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my
hand, as it seemed to me, and it was as round as a ball. I looked at it with
the eye of my understanding and thought: What can this be? I was amazed that it
could last, for I thought that because of its littleness it would suddenly have
fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and
always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the
love of God.” Julian of Norwich, Revelations
of Divine Love.
When I read this, I had the
sense of myself in the midst of a galaxy in a Hubble telescope photograph. The
colors swirled around me as we joined in a dance of loving praise to our
Creator.
“There
appears to be a law that when creatures have reached the level of
consciousness, as humans have, they must become conscious of the creation; they
must learn how they fit into it and what its needs are and what it requires of
them, or else pay a terrible penalty: the spirit of the creation will go out of
them, and they will become destructive; the very earth will depart from them
and go where they cannot follow.” Wendell Berry, Traveling at Home.
Both Julian
and Berry transform our relative smallness into a position of vital import.
Through the love of God, we find our meaning, place, and purpose. When we
ignore that, it is almost as if we tear a hole in the fabric of Creation. As
small as we are, our lives are not without meaning. With the psalmist, we can
stand amazed at how God has included us.
Psalm 8:3-4
When I look
at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have
established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that
you care for them?
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