Digging Deeper

An ad on the morning news touted the hard work of R.J. Dutton as they claimed to dig deeper. Hard work and solid research are positive values. The ad closed with a shovel embedded in the earth at the edge of the Grand Canyon.  It was a big hole they dug!  Comparing themselves to the majesty of nature (not to mention Almighty God) betrays a misplaced sense of self.
Earlier in the morning my contemplation was seeded by these poetic phrases from Wendell Berry's Leavings:
Out of charity let us pray
for the great ones of politics
and war, the intellectuals,
scientists, and advisors,
the golden industrialists,
the CEOs, that they too
may wake to a day without hope
that in their smallness they
may know the greatness of Earth
and Heaven by which they so far
live, that they may see
themselves in their enemies,
and from their great wants fallen
know the small immortal
joys of beasts and birds.