{"id":1961,"date":"2022-09-12T10:14:37","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T14:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1961"},"modified":"2022-09-12T10:14:37","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T14:14:37","slug":"small-things-are-a-big-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/12\/small-things-are-a-big-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Things Are a Big Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

The European adventurers who sailed west across the Atlantic in the 15th<\/sup> and 16th<\/sup> centuries discovered a new hemisphere.\u00a0
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But on April 24, 1676, Anton von Leeuwenhoek, without leaving his home in the Netherlands, discovered a whole new world.
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Leeuwenhoek\u2019s innate curiosity went far beyond the fabrics he peddled as a cloth merchant.\u00a0 One of his hobbies was grinding lenses.\u00a0 He created a microscope \u2013 then a scientific novelty \u2013 that could magnify objects 266 times.\u00a0 He was curious about black pepper.\u00a0 What was responsible for its characteristic bite?\u00a0 Leeuwenhoek\u2019s guess was tiny, sharp hooks, invisible to the naked eye. \u00a0\u00a0
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After soaking some peppercorns in water for three weeks, he zeroed in for a closer look.\u00a0 His hooks theory, although a clever one, turned out to be wrong.\u00a0 But that disappointment was quickly set aside in the excitement of what he saw swimming in the water.\u00a0
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There were tiny creatures.\u00a0 Hundreds and thousands of them.\u00a0 For the first time in history, a pair of human eyes gazed upon the microscopic universe in which we live, move, and have our being.
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Within a few years, Leeuwenhoek had identified bacteria, mold spores, and red blood cells.\u00a0 A few drops of pond water, he learned, hosted a microscopic metropolis of strange creatures \u2013 \u201cwee beasties,\u201d he called them.\u00a0 As he told others about his discoveries, friends and neighbors assumed he had lost his mind.
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The spouses of inventors and geniuses are sometimes called to an unusual degree of personal sacrifice.\u00a0 Leeuwenhoek compelled his long-suffering wife to carry insect eggs under her dress during chilly Dutch winters in order to keep them warm.\u00a0 This presumably makes your spouse\u2019s demand to hold the TV remote the other night seem a little less crazy.\u00a0
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What do we learn from Leeuwenhoek\u2019s story?
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Some of our most important discoveries happen when we aren\u2019t looking for them.\u00a0 They are serendipities.\u00a0 That word comes from The Three Princes of Serendip<\/em>, a Persian folk tale that dates back more than a thousand years.\u00a0 According to the fable, three young men from the island of Serendip (now known as Sri Lanka) experience one happy adventure after another, even though they\u2019re always hoping for something else.
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You may be hoping for a life partner.\u00a0 Or your dream job.\u00a0 Or the healing of a nagging illness.\u00a0 In the process of working and praying for those good things, God surprises you.\u00a0 You receive the serendipity of a faith you never thought you could have.\u00a0 Or perhaps the gifts of courage and patience.\u00a0 Or maybe even the discovery that your life can still be complete without that partner, that job, or that healing.\u00a0
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Leeuwenhoek also helped us begin to understand, in a way that no one had ever suspected, that small things matter a great deal.\u00a0
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Human beings typically assume that big things deserve big attention.\u00a0 That was represented in the history of art well into the Middle Ages.\u00a0 If someone was identified as being theologically or morally superior, that character dominated the canvas, all out of proportion to lesser figures.\u00a0
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Suddenly the world awoke to the reality that a great deal of God\u2019s creation cannot even be seen \u2013 and those entities may well turn out to be either important allies or serious adversaries.
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Leeuwenhoek was the first to glimpse the micro-world.\u00a0 But he only ventured a few steps.\u00a0 Today we know that something like 900 different species<\/em> of microbes live within your nostrils, another 800 or so on the walls of your mouth, at least 1,300 on your gums, and as many as 36,000 varieties of wee beasties call your gastrointestinal tract home.\u00a0 While a few of them may cause the occasional stomachache, a great many more are the only reason you\u2019re able to digest this morning\u2019s breakfast burrito.\u00a0 The vast majority appear to be blissful bystanders.\u00a0
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Jesus had much to say about the dignity of small things.\u00a0
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According to Matthew 13:31, life in God\u2019s kingdom typically begins with something as small as a mustard seed, which ultimately grows into a plant where birds can nest.\u00a0
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That means that our relationship with God is likely to rise and fall on little steps, little decisions, and little acts of kindness to which one might hardly pay attention.\u00a0
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In a world that has an outsized fascination with big celebrities, big corporate mergers, and big voices, small things make all the difference in the world.
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In the memorable words of St. Theresa of Calcutta, we may not be able to do great things.\u00a0 But we can all do \u201csmall things with great love.\u201d\u00a0
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Anton von Leeuwenhoek would be the first to say that such small things are a very big deal, indeed.\u00a0

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To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here The European adventurers who sailed west across the Atlantic in the 15th and 16th centuries discovered a new hemisphere.\u00a0\u00a0But on April 24, 1676, Anton von Leeuwenhoek, without leaving his home in the Netherlands, discovered a whole new world.\u00a0Leeuwenhoek\u2019s innate curiosity went far beyond the fabrics he peddled as a cloth merchant.\u00a0… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[498,6],"class_list":["post-1961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mustard-seed","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1963,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961\/revisions\/1963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}