A Brief Reflection on God and Creation, Pt. Two: Small Witnesses to Great Glory
“And he showed me a little thing… a hazelnut lying in the palm of my hand…In this little thing, I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second is that God loves it. The third is that God keeps it.” - Julian of Norwich
A contemplation of creation often starts with the grandeur of oceans and mountains, skies and deep space, with the telescopic rather than the microscopic. Yet, it is in the very small, the seemingly insignificant, that God’s handiwork is often most awe-inspiring, revealing his attributes as vividly as the vast domain of stars and seas.
While most of us might think of Nutella or a coffee flavor if we stopped to look at a hazelnut, Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) saw the small, insignificant corylus avellana and understood that, though tiny, it embodied the entirety of creation, sustained by God’s love and power. She began to understand that no part of God’s creation is too small to be significant. The hazelnut’s existence is a testament to God’s abiding love, perfect power, and meticulous care.
Solomon saw this long ago. He wrote, “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest” (Proverbs 6:6-8). For the most part, I find ants to be annoying, especially the red variety. Yet Scripture tells me I need to sit before the ant and acknowledge the wisdom he offers, the compelling and transforming power of his industrious example. Despite its tiny size, the ant exhibits remarkable foresight, discipline, and cooperation.
The ant’s example is a powerful reminder that wisdom and virtue are not confined to grand displays but are often found in the humble and the diligent. Observing the ant holds the promise of enlightening us about the importance of hard work, planning, and community, not to mention God’s labor of love. These lessons, imparted by one of the smallest creatures, are a source of inspiration for leading a fruitful and disciplined life.
Slowing Down for the Small
We live at the speed of the everlasting social media scroll that demands more and more of our attention, suggests the next purchase, reminds us of unmet expectations, and for a price offers the information we don’t have access to that would surely provide the key to a more beautiful life. We can’t slow down. We don’t dare pause to look more closely - at those we love, at our own souls, at creation, especially the tiny and the small. Yet these small and silent witnesses to God’s kind generosity, these seeds that have to be sown and then grow only along a time-honoring path, continue to call us. “How shall I picture the Kingdom?” Jesus asked. “It is like a mustard seed…”
Reflecting on such small witnesses fosters humility and gratitude. Recognizing the significance of the tiniest elements of creation helps us to understand our own place in the universe. It humbles us to see that we are part of a larger, holy tapestry. This realization might even cultivate gratitude in our hearts for the myriad ways God sustains and enriches our lives and families through the creation he fashioned by his wisdom.
That’s Nuts
Well, in a way, yes. It will never be popular to stop for very long to notice the small, the silent, and the seemingly insignificant. It’s admittedly a different way of living to see God’s glory in a pistachio or his love in a clump of soil. And yet… it was just such a lump of clay that God fashioned man and breathed the breath of life into him. There is life in the soil. The dirt praises the One who became a grain of wheat to be planted in the soil - and rise.
Jonathan Edwards knew to live in this observant way. In his famous 1723 “Spider Letter,” the nineteen-year-old Edwards wrote of those little creatures as “most despicable” and “most wondrous,” who, by “their glistening webs,” provide yet another window by which “the wisdom of the Creator shines forth to the… world.”
There is no aspect of the world not “charged with the grandeur of God… Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and, Ah!, bright wings.”* Since creation groans, perhaps we should recognize in at least some of its sighs the frustration of lessons it might teach us were we not such hurried, dull-hearted, hard-headed souls.
* God’s Grandeur, Gerard Manley Hopkins