How can we learn even from despised little creatures?

St. Basil tells the following story that prompts us to stand before God's astonishing work: “I have heard it said by one living near the sea, that the sea urchin, a little contemptible creature, often foretells calm and tempest to sailors. When it foresees a disturbance of the winds, it gets under a great pebble, and clinging to it as to an anchor, it tosses about in safety, retained by the weight which prevents it from becoming the plaything of the waves. It is a certain sign for sailors that they are threatened with a violent agitation of the winds. No astrologer, no Chaldæan, reading in the rising of the stars the disturbances of the air, has ever communicated his secret to the urchin: it is the Lord of the sea and of the winds who has

449 St. Basil of Caesarea, Hexamaeron 7.4–5 (NPNF II/8:92–93). See also Elias Koyter al-Mukhlessy, St. Basil the Great, (Publications of the Pauline Library in Beirut, 1989, Arabic): p. 319.

impressed on this little animal a manifest proof of His great wisdom … If God has not left the sea urchin outside His providence, is He without care for you?”⁴⁵⁰