My friend, Liz, is thinking about the universe today. She’s like that. And her wonderful essay culminates (for me) with the recognition that everything is interconnected.
With every breath, I change the atmosphere.
With every step, I change the ground we share.
There’s another side to that kind of thinking. Sometimes I like to remember exactly how small I am.
How big is the universe? How big is God? I imagine a giant, and I’m in his hand. No, I’m a flea in his hand. No, I’m a single-cell bacteria on the tip of his finger. No, I’m the size of an atom that makes up that bacteria. No, I’m a proton circling the atom. I’m a quark. (Whatever that is.)
Maybe even I’m somehow part of God himself. This can get theologically fuzzy sometimes. And that’s about when I start to get dizzy. Yes, we’re all connected! Yes, we’re all valued.
And thank God, I’m so so very small. I can’t handle any more responsibility than simply to do my best to keep an accurate orbit.
What does it look like to keep an accurate orbit, you ask. For that I defer to the Franciscan Sisters of Charity. According to the Religion News Service, they’ve chosen Harry Manx’s performance of “Only Then Will Your House Be Blessed” as their Thanksgiving and vocation meditation this year. Here are some highlights from the lyrics, but be sure to listen to the song. It’s wonderful.
Do the blind lead the blind?
Don’t be cruel to be kind.
Only then will your house be blessed.Offer prayer, offer sweet sweet prayer to your uninvited guests.
Give them them right to be welcomed through the night.
Only then will your house be blessed.Turn your cheek, turn your other cheek. May your mercy manifest.
When the hawk and the dove fly circles round your love,
only then will your house be blessed.
Liz, and everyone who stumbles across the post, may your house be blessed.
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I often suppose that sin grows from the illusion that we are not connected, that we are big, greater than the universe for a moment.
On another note, I’ve been thinking a lot about “small” this year, and it seems paradoxically infinite, as infinite as the universe.
My goodness, you’re becoming positively mystical in your old age.
love it.
L.L., interesting. I’ll have to chew on that for awhile.
RLP, I hesitate to use the word mystical in some circles–because it can be a divisive term to some. But, dude, I’m into poetry. What could be more mystical than that?
Thanks for dropping by the site. I’m glad you found those words encouraging. Also your poetry is good, though I am not a huge fan of poetry.
Hi Mark,
Thank you for this. Thank you for all of the connections you made to the music and the poetry, . . . to your heart and your mind. I’m grateful that you understood the powerful feeling that inspired what I wrote.
It shows through and through the spaces and the words here.
Marcus,
I think similar thoughts. I like to imagine myself waking up on a ledge. I look down and see that the cliff I’m on goes down forever and ever. There is no end and I am speechless. Then I look up! Right next to me is another cliff, and it goes up and up beyond my ability to see—forever! Then I look at the ledge itself and on it is a little bit of dust that the gusting winds blow away. The dust represents my wisdom and the cliffs the wisdom and power of God.
I like this quote from John Piper:
When David says, “I will magnify God with thanksgiving,” he does not mean: “I will make a small God look bigger than he is. He means: “I will make a big God begin to look as big as he really is.” We are not called to be microscopes, but telescopes.
(This came from his sermon at:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1980/264_I_Will_Magnify_God_with_Thanksgiving/
)
Anyway, I think you woke some old thoughts with your post, and how fitting for the Thanksgiving holiday.
-Robert
Hi Marcus,
I like to think about the story of the prodigal son in this regard. While the son deserved nothing and deserved to be treated as less than a slave, in fact the Father loved him and celebrated his return. We may be incredibly small and insignificant in this universe, but because of the love of the Father for us, we have been elevated to be His children. And that’s truly incredible when you ponder how BIG a change that really is!
Hey Mark! Thanks for stopping by my site! I really enjoyed this post – it is a dizzying thought to figure out how we are all connected, we are all a part of God… and yet God is so much bigger and thus somehow separate? Good to mull over all the same.
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