“There is no creature so little and so vile as not to manifest the goodness of God.” (Thomas à Kempis,  Imitation of Christ, Book 2, ch. 4)

Really, Thomas?

When I was young, I questioned whether the goodness of God was manifest in gnats flying around me on a summer afternoon. (I was also not a big fan of worms, but they could usually be avoided.) Lots of other insects were not on my ‘good list’ even if they might be on God’s. Yellow jackets in the rotting apples on the ground under the tree or sipping from our soda cans at a picnic. Crickets in our cellar. Mosquitoes.

These days, I’ve branched out. To ticks. I’m not a big fan. And it’s not actually the ticks. It’s the tiny, tiny bacteria that live in their guts. And then get into our bodies when the ticks bite us mammals to get their own babies off to a good start. (And who doesn’t like babies?) It’s the tiny, tiny bacteria who end up giving us Lyme disease and other ailments who really bother me.

What is the goodness of God echoing from the existence of ticks? It’s there somewhere. Just hard for me to see. And as I head north into Scotland about a week from when I’m writing this, I will be entering a thriving tick territory. And midge territory.

Midges, as I understand them, are an annoying small swarming insect (back to the gnats of my youth) with the added feature that they bite and leave small itchy welts. I have had my clothing treated professionally with permethrin. And I’ve bought the recommended repellant with picaridin for any exposed skin. I have a headnet. I think I’m prepared to defend myself from midges and ticks. And maybe I am.

Knowing that midges and ticks manifest the goodness of God can be a stronger defense.

It also strikes me that when Jesus tells us (John 15) to “love one another as I have loved you” he doesn’t necessarily mean only other people. He can be speaking to and of all creation. We can love the midges as fellow created beings. They can love us.

We can follow this command and coexist with the tiny, “vile” creatures we meet. They somehow “manifest the goodness of God” – even if we can’t see how. And we can love them.

Do you have a list of hard-to-love creatures? Creatures who make you wonder what God was thinking when he first made them? Are you all excited about the glories of God’s creation when it comes to butterflies and endangered songbirds, say, but have questions when it comes to slugs or head lice or poison ivy? Try the hard work of loving them as Jesus first loved us (and loves them).

I’m going to try that, but with my repellant in hand. I’ll try to stay in my lane while letting the ticks and midges stay in their lanes. And we can somehow love one another.

(written in Kirkby Malham in the Yorkshire Dales, 2 June 2025)