In an old edition of The Screwtape Letters, there's a preface or foreword in which CS Lewis says something along the lines of the devil having "No sense of humor or proportion." That line struck me and stayed with me.
I think maturity involves a good sense of proportion: Seeing big things as big, and small things as small. You see it when working with kids. They cry because somebody cut in front of them in line, not recognizing the smallness. And lately, I have come to recognize the opposite error: Letting the big things go is just as wrong, isn't it?
There's a funny thing about proportions, though. Humans are big. The minimum size for life is one cell. By that standard, we are massive. There is so much going on in the universe we can't see because it's so tiny. So many forces are based on molecular, atomic, subatomic activity.
And yet our planet, the enormous planet that still has unexplored corners and unconquered mysteries even in the day and age of relentless, systematic study, is actually tiny, even by the scale of the solar system. Zooming out to the galaxy and beyond, it becomes invisible altogether, dwarfed by even the smallest of stars.
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him (Genesis 1:27).
Humans, people, are a big deal. It is no small thing to be made in the image of God.
For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19).
It's impossible to wrap my mind around. Dust made in His image. The only true perspective, then, I think, isn't accessible this side of eternity.
Perspective is a funny thing, too. The truth is complicated. I see why it would be tempting to go with “There is no truth, it is all subjective”, but the world refutes that argument. The sun rises and sets. Dropped objects fall to the earth at the same speed, minus air resistance. Life’s blueprint rests in coils of acid. There’s only four pieces in that particular puzzle, but the pattern codes for every cell in my body. There’s truth in those coils, in the orbit of the earth, in gravity. Of course, zoom into or out from these deceptively simple truths and they become woefully complex again, but that’s beside the point.
When you get to truths about humans, the truth becomes so entangled in perspective that I think it might be impossible to get to the real, objective, fact. Not that this doesn’t mean there is truth, but I think it might be impossible to know or understand this side of eternity.
Perspective is valuable, then, as a means of at least getting closer to the truth, following the threads closer to the snarl, and then the thing hidden within. Within perspectives you can feel the common object they are shaped around, even if you can’t see it.
You start trying to find something out, and you never stop. Everything has layers of complexity built in, whether through depth or through breadth. Everything is actually much more detailed than it seems to be on the surface, or it connects to several other things that can all affect it.
I'm calling this blog "Miniscule, Massive, and Magnificent" because I think it is true of humanity, and the world we live in. Made lovingly but fallen. Full of contradictions that perhaps only God understands.
I don't mean that everything I write will reflect this. I would just like to keep perspectives, proportions, and my own very limited view in mind. And ensure I am keeping in mind someone greater, who is magnificent, and who knows and understands all things in their perfect proportions, undistorted by perspective.
