What you wrote with such elegance reminds me of similar metaphor I grasped while beginning to serve at the Baha’i World Centre after having been a believer for just five years. It was the mid-1980s, and my adoration of Baha’u'llah had still not opened my eyes to the astonishing transformation His Revelation had already begun to work on the planet nor to the majesty and spiritual power of the Universal House of Justice nor to the number and strength of communities founded in His name. One afternoon in the Shrine of Baha’u'llah as I gazed at the beautiful design of a carpet on the wall beside me, I began to imagine myself as small as the tiniest silken thread in it. It dawned on me that as an individual in my locality my fellow believers and I toiled to embellish the margin of a minute filigree that adorned the edge of a blossom, at the carpet’s very edge. But at the World Centre I was blessed to behold the pattern of the entire carpet rolled out in its dazzling vastness, beauty and complexity. I now saw the glorious design to which my tiniest detail was somehow integral. I wished every believer could be blessed to zoom out in this way. Nowadays with the proliferation and exploding richness of communications media, especially the internet, it is so much easier to get that majestic overview.

We do need to zoom out, and in again, for both perspectives are enriching and instructive.