The Groaning of the Ugly

We took a hike the other evening with the boys. We walked along the flooded river and listened as it barely made a sound rolling through the crack in the earth called a ‘bed.’ We walked for a while on a twisty path lined on both sides with tall grass, wildflowers and an assortment of weeds that I cannot begin to properly identify. Trees grew tall on both sides. I agree that I should be able to dazzle you with the specific identities of the trees we saw, but alas, I cannot. I will call them Bill, Hank, George and Jim. Henrietta, Marietta, and Georgette. Those names ring with more beauty than Spruce, Maple, and Oak. Every now and again we would amble down a short scramble and march right up next to the river. We traipsed through the mud and through the calf-high river bank weeds hoping to catch a glimpse of a snake or a turtle or a spider weaving a web. We saw a few footprints from unidentified walking objects, but that was all.

Along the path we spotted some large leaf plants. Tucked inside one of the giant leaves was a spider’s nest and a small, ferocious looking spider. Near the stem of the leaf was a small frog. I am not sure if he was waiting for a meal of spider’s legs and eggs or if he had wandered into the wrong domicile and been bitten by the tiny eight legged vampire of the garden. He was quite placid—as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. The spider was jumpy—true, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous. They stared at each other but that was about it. No conversation, no tea, no jokes or ‘how’s the kids’ conversations took place—at least not that I could hear. We wandered on leaving the spider and the frog to stare at each other until one should make a foolish mistake, or until the other acts upon the foolish mistake already made.

The path abruptly changed. What was once smooth, fairly wide, level and definable suddenly changed into a corrupted landscape pocked with tree roots and rocks and covered with a slippery clay and ascending. The path suddenly became much more difficult to navigate. We pressed on because we had a goal in mind. Up, up, up we trudged to the top of a small ridge shaded by a thin line of trees growing like protuberances off of a vertebrae. At the top we rested for a mere moment before sliding down the other side and dodging still more trees and tree roots. At the bottom we spotted what we had been looking for—a beautiful stepped waterfall falling between the shoulders of two medium sized hills. Below the falls was a shallow pool of murky brown water.

It was worth the trip. Before we could reach the falls we had to climb over a hundred fallen, dead, bleached tree trunks. We had to walk through some shallow water. It was worth the climb. The small enclave of tranquility was worth all the work it took to get their. We were invited in to see something remarkable that can only be seen with an exhausting amount of climbing and walking. And the amazing thing is that after arriving at the destination all we could do for a few moments was stand and stare and comment on how beautiful such ugliness was. It’s not like there was any color beyond the green leaves and brown pinecones that hung on tree branches and were scattered around the floor. And the rocks were everywhere. Tons and tons of rocks littered the place where we stood staring at water falling from a place we could not see. Still, it was worth the stare.

Amazingly enough beauty if often found among the objectionable. Sarah McLachlan questioned in a song from the CD ‘Surfacing’, ‘Is misery made beautiful right before our eyes?’ The river was ugly. The path was ugly. The spider was ugly. The poison ivy was…well, poison. The rocks were broken. The water was not potable. The trees were broken and fallen and mere skeletons of something that was once strong and proud. Honestly, there was nothing beautiful about the adventure we took that evening. There was something beautiful at the end though, something not touched by the frozen hands of man or carved by the edge of a blade. It was just water falling from one smooth table of rock to the next until it could fall no further. Then the water was no longer unique but mixed with other brown murky water that would soon become part of the river and washed away into oblivion. I wonder how long before a single drop of that water returns to the top of the hills and splashes down from rock to rock all over again.

Misery is made beautiful right before our eyes. God takes the ugliness of death, the anger of hatred and the misery of suffering and transforms them into hope, faith, and love. Then again, our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Too, the creation awaits for redemption. I thought I heard the groaning of the earth the other day when we walked through the woods, beside a river, among the trees and with the insects and animals. All we can do is wait and hope.