Part of the weird thing about loving science is that occasionally you slip into geek mode and become fascinated by something completely arbitrary. For instance, about once a month I'll stare at my hand while I wiggle my fingers because I can imagine the muscles, tendons, bones, vessels, and connective tissue working together to make something that seems so effortless happen. Then I move along to the nervous system and how freaky it is that an impulse takes such a miniscule period of time to make the finest of movements occur. And if its an especially good zone-out, then I'll begin to imagine cells and pores (and yes, as I'm typing I'm staring at my hands and feeling especially existential) and how amazing it is that a seemingly infinite number of cells comprises such a disturbingly large man.
Other times, I'll be driving (usually through the vast emptiness that is the I-20 corridor) and realize that the disturbingly large man is actually a small speck in the car, which is a small speck on the road, which makes me just like everyone else and leads to me feeling very, very tiny (which is a nice feeling, I have to admit) and vulnerable (not so nice).
Through it all though, the moments of self-realization and hippie freak-outs, there is one constant that comforts me: all of this, the cells, the cars, the roads, everything is created by a very loving and compassionate God. I was created for a purpose, no matter how small I appear or how much of an experiment I can feel like.
Donald Miller, in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, puts it this way: "I like the part of the Bible that talks about God speaking the world into existence, as though everything we see and feel were sentences from his mouth, all the wet of the world his spit. I feel written. My skin feels written, and my desires feel written. My sexuality was a word spoken by God, that I would be male, and I would have brown hair and brown eyes and come from a womb. It feels literary, doesn't it, as if we are characters in books." (86)
It's nice to feel small...to feel created. Just as infants require care and protection because they are defenseless, the idea of being created by someone lets me know that someone is looking out for me. God put a lot of effort and skill into forming my body, and He puts just as much effort into protecting me and helping me through this world that has rejected Him.
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; you works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139:13-14
