Why So Much Beauty?

            

A recent trip to the barrier islands and a swamp of southern Georgia brought me face to face with some of God’s remarkable creatures.  Sea turtles, alligators, terrapins, turkey vultures, deer, raccoons, bears, snakes, horseshoe crabs, sharks, to mention only a few, populate this part of the world.  As I journeyed through this low country, I wondered why so much beauty?

Creative Commons - National Aquarium Flickr

            Take, for example, the Diamondback Terrapin.  The carapace of each is exquisite in design.  It did not have to be so; however, the Creator of all that is determined that beauty would be a hallmark of divine handiwork. These ancient web-footed members of the turtle family are essential to the ecology of wetlands.  They are a part of the water purification system, and their presence helps maintain the invertebrate balance in the brackish water they prefer. They also help control the salt marsh snails that overgraze the grasses.  Yet, they are endangered, and crossing the road puts them at great peril.  We might also ask, why so much waste?

            Only 1 of 400 sea turtle hatchings makes it to maturity.  Many predators and the sheer exertion of making it from a nest back to the ocean diminishes the prospects of all but a very few.  Is the waste a part of unredeemed creation or is it simply the necessary calculus of an interdependent ecosystem where death is a part of ongoing life?

            The alligators of the Okefenokee Swamp, a National Wildlife Refuge, reveal how long a species can endure in certain climes.  Amazingly robust, a bull alligator can grow up to 14 feet and weigh nearly 1000 pounds.  As we toured the swamp by boat, we were instructed to keep our elbows in the boat lest we provide a snack to the ever circling alligators who keep watchful eyes on who comes through their territory.  As a big one splashed right next to my seat, a headline flew across my mind: “Alligator unaware of teaching about redemption of all creation as he drags seminary president overboard.”

            One of the lectionary texts for next Sunday recounts Jacob’s dream sequence with the ladder that spans heaven and earth.  Awaking from his dream he exclaims: “How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:17). He recognized that the earth is full of God’s glory, and that God inhabits not only the heavenly places, but the abode of creatures, too.

            There is so much beauty and, seemingly, so much waste.  Yet God’s desire for the flourishing of all creaturely life entails pain and cost for all who share this good home.  That should invite us to praise and recognition that “surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”  God indwells all that is and calls it good.  God has made everything beautiful, as the Bible teaches.

            Molly T. Marshall

Central prepares leaders for seeking God, shaping church, and serving the whole world.