Whodunit Wednesday: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

I remember very well the first time that I was introduced to the world of smaller things all around us. I do not remember how young I was, but I was encouraged to get some pond water in a jar and observe it. I was used to observing and enjoyed it. We had an aquarium and I could easily sit for quite some time observing the fish and their habits and reactions to one another. So observing a glas jar of pond water was not a problem. 

After sitting and watching for a little bit, it was clear that there were things living in the water. They were swimming all around. If you took a magnifying glass, you could even see some of the swimming things up close - if they swam in front of your glass. When I was older I would be introduced to the microscope and the amazing world of even smaller things. 

Anyone who starts looking into microbiology will come across the name of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (even if they cannot pronounce it). Antonie (or Anthony, as we might call him in English) was born in Delft, the Netherlands in 1632. He grew up with a step-father (his father died when he was 5) and an uncle (after his step-father died when Antonie was 10). He was a businessman who worked with cloth. 

It was his desire to be able to see things better for his business that led him to create better magnifying glasses. His kept his method secret and discovered that he could use his lenses for seeing more than threads. He was the first to see single cell organisms and thereby change the thinking of the Royal Society at the time. And he did all of this considering himself simply a businessman and speaking no other language than his native Dutch. 

Van Leeuwenhoek’s strength lay in his microscopes. He made lenses that no one else knew how to make. It was not until 1957 that a similar type microscope lens was made and only in 2021 that a Dutch study of a Leeuwenhoek lens finally showed how it was made. These small lenses could magnify up to 500 times. Using these lenses van Leeuwenhoek discovered things like spermatozoa, muscular fibers, bacteria and the vacuole of the cell. 

As in the time of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, it is still the amazing complexity of the design in nature that continues to point us to the Creator who has made everything so well. The deeper we look, the more complexity we see and the more convinced we should become of the design of God in all that He has made. 

The song of God

It never gets old. Sometimes hearing the same song again and again, or singing the same song time after time, grinds on your nerves. But this never gets old. Some of our songs speak of what I mean: All creatures of our God and King, The spacious firmament on high, This is my Father’s world.

At the Men’s Retreat this month we went on a walk in the woods. I was walking with Jeremy, who is blind. I simply gave a running commentary on what we were walking by, what we were feeling. A cathedral of majestic trees looming over our heads, or a bustle of bright blowing birch dancing across the path, a babbling brook down in the valley or a crag of a rock jutting out as a sentinel over the trees below. And as we walked, we shared the beauty of how God cares for us, how mighty he is, the joy that he brings to our lives and how we can continue walking in the Light. 

God’s song is everywhere in His creation and it is thrilling to stop and listen and then to sing along. This month has also meant several times of singing together with God’s family, as I mentioned last time. The group from Liége that comes on the first Wednesday of the month thrills my heart. Although we still struggle to speak in words with one another in conversations, the words we use to speak to one another in song are so very clear. God is King, we are His and together we will continue in His love and grace.

That was the song this past weekend as well as we gathered with a group in a park in Aachen, Germany. Last year we met for the first time here, in a small museum in the park. When we asked again this year if it would be possible to use the facility, they told us it was not possible as they were preparing an exhibition – but we could use the gardens. So God provided beautiful weather, we all brought our voices and hearts, and we shared God’s words of love with one another – and anyone walking by in the park.

It is thriliing to be singing His song in our lives, singing in harmony or in unison, sometimes softly, sometimes in full voice. What God has created – and is creating – is simply wonderful!

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.                     Colossians 3:1-4