A DROP OF DEW

"What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew."  

                                                           -Robert Browning

There are many things in the world that can make you feel small: a big train barreling toward you, the Grand Canyon, a photograph of the universe.  Today while I was out photographing flowers, it was a drop of dew.  A single drop of dew made me feel small.

Through the camera lens, the drop of dew looked isolated and cool.  I began to think about my place in the world and how important, or unimportant, I am.  What have I contributed to the world?  What have been my great accomplishments?  What difference have I made?

It’s easy to feel down when you have been sick, and maybe this is why I began questioning myself today.  After all, the cancer that I am trying to expel from my body right now with chemo therapy started as a minute single cell.  Having a disease like cancer can make you feel very small and alone. 

When I think of a drop of dew, and how small it is compared to all the water in the world, it is easy to equate that to how small each of us is compared to the universe.  But everything in the world has a size and a place.  Everything is connected.  Everything has a purpose. 

Instead if considering the smallness of the drop of dew, 

I began to think about how one drop of water can fall from that leaf into a puddle on the ground.  Then that puddle can flow into a creek, the creek into a river, and the river into the sea.  The sea is full of tiny drops of water, each one necessary to the whole.  We are all necessary. 

With my camera, I try to capture the beauty of all of nature and share it with others.  And that is enough for me to be a necessary part of this planet.  I hope I never stop trying to present the beauty I see all around me and that I am forever thankful for a God that created each drop of dew that sat on a leaf, fell into a puddle, and eventually flowed into the sea.