Every Grain of Sand
Posted By David on January 25, 2010
Love all God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. And once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly, more and more every day. And you will at last come to love the whole world with an abiding, universal love. - from The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
I spent quite some time reflecting on this quote. I haven’t read The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky’s last novel, but I can find a lot that resonates with me in these words. Realizing the interconnectedness of all things is not a modern invention. Indeed, it is the most ancient of human philosophies. Never before in our history, however, have we been in a position to perceive it, as Dostoevsky puts it, so directly or in such detail.
No longer do we need to use metaphor to connect suffering in one part of the world with its effect on another. We can see, instantly, the results of war, famine, catastrophe. We can see our own reaction; watch relief planes take off in the morning, and watch them land half a world away in the afternoon. We can pack a blanket in a box, put it in a care package, and watch it opened live and in color by someone shivering from the cold.
We can also see what happens when we fail to respond; when we ignore the animals, the plants, and the grains of sand. We can watch polar bears drown, or villages be washed away, or forests disappear before our eyes. Google Earth and other tools let us zoom in on places that the news could never take us; blogs and discussion forums help us gain insight into other cultures and other individuals in a detail that was impossible only a couple of years ago.
Failing to perceive the “divine mystery” in all things is not a sustainable way to live as a culture; as a species. Learning to love the whole world with “an abiding, universal love” is an essential step in maturing as a civilization; as humanity.
May we use all the tools we have, technological and philosophical, to bring that about.
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