Imagining the world from a beetle's point of view is fanciful and some might ridicule it as irrelevant to any real concerns. But from a process perspective, such an imaginative exercise is, in its own way, a kind of prayer, because it is a way of sharing in the divine life. In process theology, God is imminent within all living beings as a lure to live with satisfaction. God knows not only humans but also non-humans with an incomparable intimacy. God does indeed know what it is like to be a beetle, even though humans can have only a dim intuition. Accordingly, a playful meditation on "what it might be like to be a beetle" can be a spiritual practice in its own right, a finite and human sharing in divine empathy for each and every creature. Equally important, such imagining can be a healthy antidote to a kind of anthropocentrism that too often, and unnecessarily, creeps into monotheistic consciousness. We monotheists all too frequently imagine the earth as a castle of divine making, designed for human use and pleasure, with the rest of creation as a mere backdrop.
— Jay McDaniel, Gandhi's Hope