John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com

‘What are human beings that You are mindful of them?” This question from the Psalms begs a double-edged question: How are we doing as a species and what is the place of human beings among all the creatures of creation?

Most of the daily news reports on wars and rumors of wars, on political and social struggles are concerned with information about the former question. However, exploring “the rest of the story” may, for a short time, turn our focus away from attention only to self-absorbed human interactions and conflicts. Two news features this week have given me pause to turn from the verities of human beings and consider for a moment the astounding environment that is the very context of our existence.

The Monitor recently gave us a magnified illustration of a White Admiral Butterfly. Under the illustration was a story about the life and life cycle of this colorful creature. A fixed attention on the illustration gives one a sense of inquisitiveness and amazement. What awareness does this butterfly have; with its curved antenna, tiny head, thread-like proboscis, its skeletal legs bent into toeless feet, and its multicolored wings? How does it recognize threats, find sustenance? How can such a frail creature even manage to hold together? And yet it is a giant compared to a mosquito or a black fly. What are White Admiral Butterflies that we should be mindful of them?

Then I turned to the New York Times article on life in the deep ocean called the “twilight zone.” The article explained that “three-quarters of the ocean has never been seen by human beings.” Studies of the twilight zone have revealed “that some 11 billion tons of microorganisms, crustaceans, squid, fish and gelatinous animals… live there.” The study revealed the “largest migration of animal life on the planet: trillions of creatures (copepods, bioluminescent lanternfish and basking sharks) swimming to the surface at night to feed, then sinking at dawn to hide in the depths.” What is life dwelling in the depths of the sea that we should be mindful of it?

And then I went outside to stand with the psalmist under the star-strewn night sky. I wonder, what keeps those stars, too numerous to count, in their place in the dark sky? It overwhelms my mind that every particle of my being, was once part of the same dust that forms the stars and planets. As Thomas Carlyle has written, “A handful of dust which God enchants.”

We are earth children born into the life of the cosmos, companions with microbes, whales and elephants; with the tallest redwood tree and a wispy blade of grass. When I look up and consider the life-span of a tree, I imagine the accumulation of three or four human lifetimes of experience. What would it be like to live as long as a tree? The tree laughs in the breeze reminding me that we share within our bodies particles as old as the beginning of time. What is the vast existence of the cosmos that human beings should be mindful of it?

Yes, we humans have built complexed cities, created bombs that can explode with the power to decimate life on earth, we have performed medical miracles, learned to fly, traveled into the past with our telescopes, filled the present with phones, texts, emails, and X. We have learned to make our morning coffee, make olives edible, and make multiple flavors of ice cream!

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Yet, the butterfly, the creatures of the ocean’s twilight zone, the stars, and the ancient trees suggest a modicum of awe and humility for the human psyche. And with that perspective maybe we can work on the question, how are we doing in our relationships with one another?