I wish my baggage was microscopic!

Yesterday, we got to spend a few hours out on a boat doing some "plankton tows." These little critters are the most populous species (by biomass) on the planet - good thing, too, since everything else pretty much relies on them to translate the sun's energy into food. We did 5 tows - three "horizontal", where we dragged a net behind our boat for 2 minutes collecting species with different sized nets, and two vertical where we sunk a net attached to a rope down 15 meters with different kinds of nets. Then, we looked at the critters we caught under high-powered microscopes and either fried them under the light, or squished them under a slip cover. I couldn't help but feel really bad about that - one reason I'm basically vegan now (apart from being lactose intolerant..).
I, of course, began to theologize about all this (which is actually good, because I think a lot of my vocational questions are starting to be answered - or, since I believe that God knew me before I entered my mother's womb, the answers are becoming more sharp in my "vision field"): why does God rest the survival of the planet on some of the world's smallest creatures? Why does all of life depend on things most people can't see (and wouldn't know existed without the insatiably inquiring minds that are the fuel of science)? I think it's amazing that God hides so much - amazing in that the gift is as much the search as it is the finding. God isn't playing games, though - "Seek and you WILL find" - He just LOVES to be found. Maybe this is one way I reflect the image of God. (My thoughts are rather tangled this morning since I was up until 12:30 last night - talking! [finally I am part of a naturally-gloming group - you know how in groups, the initial shake-up of getting together naturally and inevitably settles into "cliques"? I've ALWAYS been on the outside of these groups and I finally think I'm actually part of one of these social aggregates - though that sentence right there could explain why I always feel "different" everywhere I go...:-P] - and today we've got an overwhelming amount of work to do since this class is over on Friday. Then, REAL craziness ensues...).