Early Monday morning, thousands of white Altocumulus and Cirrocumulus cloudlets filled half the dome of the sky here at the western edge of Central Appalachia. According to Gavin Pretor-Pinney and his Cloudspotter’s Guide, the Alto clouds are three miles above me, the Cirro farther, at eight miles above.
Monday, I was looking north and east. I liked the way Pretor-Pinney helped me identify cloud sizes. “Cirrocumulus appear like little grains of salt. The larger Altocumulus cloudlets generally appear the width of one to three fingers, held at arm’s length,” he says. From where I stood on my deck, eight miles below the Cirrocumulus, they looked tiny. But suppose I were flying into the middle of them in a Boeing 747, at the plane’s max altitude, which is the Cirro’s height, about 45,000 feet. How large would those grains of salt look then?
Small things appear small depending on where we sit, stand, or lie when we see or experience them. A seven-foot tall, 1,100-pound bull moose looked small and harmless in the New Hampshire backwoods when he was 100 yards away. But ten feet away, he was enormous and formidable, so I stayed in my car or climbed a tree.
Monday, I saw the small Alto and Cirro cloudlets “clearly,” like the blind man Jesus healed at Bethsaida (Mark 8:25). I had recently neglected cloud-watching, but Monday I remembered what I had been missing. For example, cloud events in Scripture were signs of the Lord’s presence for prophets, priests, kings, and disciples. Remember Noah’s bow in the cloud, Moses’ cloud by day and fire by night, and the cloud that filled Solomon’s new Temple, and especially the cloud that took Jesus from sight at the ascension? I recalled Job as the Lord questioned him: “Who can number the clouds…or stay the bottles of Heaven” (38:37)? Not Job. Not me.
One of my favorite cloud stories is found in 1 Kings 18. At the prophet’s direction, Elijah’s servant atop Carmel saw “nothing” six times, but on the seventh, he spotted a “little cloud like a man’s hand” rising from the sea. Shortly, that tiny cloud grew black and angry and spread up and out into an enormous Cumulonimbus thunderhead that reached the top of the troposphere. Then wind, torrential rain, thunder, lightning, and perhaps hail assaulted the earth for the first time in more than three years. We don’t know about the hail, but I can imagine it because rain, thunder, lightning, and hail are what Cumulonimbus clouds do best.
Earlier God had sent consuming fire on Carmel. Now, torrential rain spread everywhere. That’s what the hand of the Lord can do. Elijah, wise man that he was, ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. Hold on to the hand of Jesus and stay ahead of your enemy, Elijah seems to say to me.
On our deck, gazing at the clouds, I thought of the old children’s song: “He’s got the whole world in His hands.” But our Lord doesn’t just hold the world. He holds everything: people, nature, the cosmos itself. All of it, everything, everywhere, in His hands. And in Him, “all things consist,” Paul reminded us (Colossians 1:17).
Tuesday, a tiny female downy woodpecker landed on the edge of our deck, clung upside down, and briefly pecked at a seed or insect between the boards. Then off she darted, as if spooked. The downy is the smallest North American woodpecker, about sparrow size, and mainly black on the upper parts including wings, plus a mostly black tail with white bars. We knew ours was female because she had no red patch on the back of her head as males do. These tiny woodpeckers are rare in our backyard. Her visit was wondrous but too brief. I yearn for her return.
Ornithologists call woodpeckers a “keystone species,” meaning they have a large impact on other species and their environment. They aid pest control and create habitat for other woodland creatures. They are top-notch consumers of grubs, beetles, and ants that damage plants. In addition, their large and deep holes in trees offer homes to tiny owls, other birds, and even woodland ducks and rodents.
Woodpeckers live between four and eleven years. Our large and beautiful pileated woodpecker that has regularly visited dead trees and stumps along our creek bank is MIA. He has not shown up this year. Year after year we have watched him pound and peck for insects twenty times per second — 1,200 times per minute and up to 12,000 pecks a day. Always without either a concussion to his tiny brain or a migraine.
Our backyard “creatures great and small,” to use James Herriot’s words, bless me.
I’m reminded, too, I’m afraid of certain tiny things, especially scurrying ones. A baby five-lined skink was in our mailbox Wednesday. The family who built our house not only built a nice house we enjoy but also a substantial brick mailbox. Wednesday, when I opened the mailbox door, the tiny skink (I call it a lizard) scurried around inside and disappeared into a tiny hole I had never noticed.
Thankfully, he apparently was as afraid of me as I was of him. He was a baby, no doubt, but quick. He scared me. Three inches long counting his tail, almost black with five yellowish stripes — two on each side and one down the middle of his back. The next three days, he scurried around our mailbox, thoroughly creeping me out before slithering down his hole. By Saturday, he was gone, grown too large to go in and out of his little hole, I assumed. Good riddance! Although I know he eats those small black spiders I sometimes see in the mailbox. Still, I’m glad he’s out of there.
The proverbialist counts lizards among four small things on earth that are “exceedingly wise” (30:28). They live in kings’ palaces (as well as mailboxes), and “you can take [them]
in your hands.”
Not me.
Why did the proverbialist call lizards “exceedingly wise”? First, some translators prefer spider rather than lizard here. I’m sticking with lizard, although I dislike spiders, too, so spider or lizard, it doesn’t matter to me. The question is, why is this small creature considered wise, quick of wit and a model for me, as one commentator says?
Saint Gregory the Great, a writer and bishop of Rome, called the biblical lizard a symbol of the simple, earnest person who may rise to kings’ palaces better than a sinful, conniving person. Other ancient expositors connected the four wise animals of Proverbs 30:24-28 (ant, rock badger, locust, and lizard) with the Church Triumphant. Still others focus on the power and significance of small things. Nineteenth century commentor Franz Delitzsch called the lizard nimble and cunning, “a little beast that knows how to…scale walls….[and] gain an entrance into palaces.”
All that suggests these “little beasts” are models for us Christ followers. The ants suggest preparation and perseverance trump power. Like tiny badgers who seek shelter and safety among rocks, our wit and inventiveness top arrogance and ambition. Like locusts in their swarms, we “swarm” of Christians are formidable messengers marching in rank to carry the gospel. As for us “lizards,” we are part of Christ’s kingdom and will enjoy our King’s heavenly palace one of these days.
Some weeks I get too caught up in the big things in the world — wars, addictions, abuses, killings, spiritual lethargy, rebellions, and political wranglings. This week, I’ve turned my eyes instead to the Lord’s small things — his tiny creatures and creations here on the western edge of Central Appalachia. Those small things have blessed me. They are reminders of who my Lord is and the large things He does for me. I’m grateful!
About the Writer: Brenda Evans lives and writes in Ashland, Kentucky. You may contact her at beejayevans@windstream.net.
