When I was in elementary school, we were shown a film in science class that had a big impact on me. Maybe you were shown a similar clip.
The opening shot was of a boy and his grandfather fishing from a small boat on a lake. The camera then slowly moved closer, focusing on the boy, then his face, his eye, then the interior of his eye, zooming closer to show the microscopic structure of the retina at a cellular level. Closer still into the make up of one cell, the nucleus, then the tightly wound DNA, the compounds that comprise that DNA, then an individual atom of carbon, and finally an electron whirling around the nucleus of the atom.
The camera then slowly retreated back to the shot of the boy and his grandfather, but it continued to move ever further back to show the lake, then the surrounding forest, and further and further away until we saw Earth as a whole, and still further to include our galaxy and beyond.
I think this film moved me, even as a child, on many levels. I had always been fascinated with science, and here it all was, in a fifteen minute film. The scope and breadth of the natural world was staggering, as well as the human capacity to understand it. It also raised the question of the limits of our knowledge–what was beyond our understanding on a micro and a macro scale?
This little film, and concepts like it, filled me with wonder. Yes, wonder at the marvelous natural world we live in, and especially awe of its complexity, intricacy, and vastness. If the words were available to me at the time, I would have said that THIS is why I believe there is a God.
But if we were all individuals, living our individual lives separate from each other, in a hermetically sealed bubble of natural wonder, would that be enough of an experience to fully know and understand the Divine?
No. It is with each other—in one-on-one interactions, in our families, in our faith communities, in our neighborhoods, and in the larger human community—that we learn more about the Divine.
There is a teaching from Dorotheus of Gaza, a Desert Father, from about 540 C.E. that has long held deep meaning for me. He asks us to imagine a wheel, with God at the center hub and all of humankind spread out on the circumference, or rim. As we move closer to God, down our particular spoke of this wheel, we necessarily move closer to each other.
Too, if we move toward one another, we will move toward to God. What a beautiful interplay. This interaction reminds me of Jesus’ words on what he says is the greatest commandment—to love God and to love each other.
Conversely, if we pull away from the Divine, we also move away from a deeper understanding of others. And if we isolate ourselves from humanity, we are further from God.
I certainly felt this dynamic during the years of Harvey’s illness. I wouldn’t have been able to name it as Divine are the time. It actually felt like God was very far from us in this bleakness, but the comfort and support of those that cared for us were reminders that the Divine uses human hands and feet to do God’s work.
It is from the distance of time that I can fully appreciate this Presence.
Kind of like that film. When I zoom in on the particulars of all that others did for us, I am amazed. And when I pull back and take a look through a much larger lens, I see the Divine all over the place.