For the first stop on the second leg of the trip, we found ourselves at Great Sand Dunes, looking at promises for the upcoming weekend: a good painting location, hikes, and new beautiful scenery. We pulled into a quiet parking lot and got out. I stretched my neck to see the top of the dunes, barely visible.  From the view of our campsite, we could see the dunes, but they looked unimportant, insignificant even, compared to the blue mountains hugging their shoulders. But now, it was I who felt small and insignificant, standing in front of the towering and vast piles of sand.

     As I stood there, the dunes felt overwhelming. Everyone there looked like indiscernible, minuscule ants. Not a pleasant feeling, knowing you look just as trivial from their point-of-view. It caught me off guard. How could we all feel so important, but be so…small? 

     But is that how each grain of sand feels, each star in the sky feels, or each droplet in the ocean feels? When they look at the larger picture do they feel threatened by their surroundings—insignificant? Or do they recognize their vital role in making the lovely in the grandness of the dunes, peacefulness in the sky, or vastness of the ocean? Naked the earth would be, stripped of all things beautiful, without each seemingly unimportant thing playing their part.

     So, while standing in front of the dunes, I thought of this. While humans are small, we happened to be on this earth, against all odds, together. Through generations we have survived heartaches, earthquakes, cancers, lost jobs, pandemics, miscarriages, and disappointments, but we’ve shared laughter, made discoveries with co-workers, danced in the kitchen, heard new stories from strangers, old ones from our grandparents, hiked to mountaintops, and fallen in love. If you take a step back, the larger picture is a radiant one, and you’re a part of it—filling the earth and giving beauty its life. You might be small, but you are not insignificant.