As I stood in the dusky glow of early morning and gazed at the moon still hanging in the sky, I could feel once again the vastness of the universe and appreciate once again how tiny I really am when seen in the context of an infinite expanse.  It is good to be in touch with this understanding, especially on days when we feel as though our life is filled with huge bumps and snags — it helps us to remember how small our problems really are when we look at the big picture.

I’ve been having fun recently experimenting with the zoom feature on my digital camera.  It allows me to see life in a way that is so magnified that, in a way, I become the moon looking down on the earth below.  As I walked along a mossy riverbank last week, I focused my camera, zoomed in and gained this new perspective of its fuzzy, flocked surface:

I tried to imagine what an ant might think as he walked along in the shade of the moss-trees and tried to see beyond them and into the vast world outside of his own.  I paused in amazement that such beautiful and perfect detail exists in a clump of moss; and I wondered what other amazing things might exist beyond the reach of my lens.

And I wondered what sort of amazing God/Source/Creator/Light loved the moss enough to create its miniature world — and the ants to enjoy it.  And I marveled at the thought that such an amazing Creator would bother to notice that I exist in the midst of such a vast universe; yet I know that it is true.  I feel it in the blessings that surround me every day, in the beauty of the world — from expansive sky to tiny moss trees.  I feel it in my being; which carries a piece of the one who breathed me into life, just as a work of art bears the signature of the artist.

It is good to stand small in the infinite universe; and it is good to remember the little things as well, and ponder the thought that infinity stretches in both directions.