Simply Beautiful

Everyone seems to want an answer. In fact, everyone seems to want a simple answer. Something they can hang onto through the hard times and know that they know. Something simple and clear that makes sense, even when everything around them seems senseless.

I understand the urge. I really do. I've looked for it too. I spent much of my adolescence looking for it. In my early twenties I became a fundamentalist, hoping to find it. I wanted the complexities of life to make sense. I wanted truth to be reducible to something I could hang onto. My life was a maelstrom of feelings and new experiences and I just wanted one thing that I could say confidently to myself, "At least I know that this is true."

I wanted to be confident and decisive. I wanted to be bold and faithful. I wanted to go forward with faith that I was right and that I need not fear the consequences of my actions, because God was on my side. Perhaps I wanted the kind of faith that President Bush so easily proclaims.

But something got in my way. Sometimes I think it was life. But more often, I think it was God. It seemed like every day I noticed another facet to life's complexity. Sometimes it was just noticing how many structures it took to form and nourish a single, tiny leaf. Sometimes it was coming to understand the many ways one could address a single issue and still be doing so faithfully. Eventually, it was noticing the complexities of my own heart. Walt Whitman said it best, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."

At first, all this complexity was disconcerting. I grieved the death of my easy answers. I struggled through times of grave doubt and despair. I cried out for a return to simple faith and singular, authoratative truth. I got angry that such great evil exists. I got even more angry that evil sometimes mars the great good that I long for and love. I spent a good long time hating myself for being too complex and messy and not being able to fit myself--and my faith--into something more simple, more clear, more orthodox.

And then, something amazing happened. I began to see the beauty in the complexity. My meditation on that single leaf became wonder at the magnificence of a tree. That wonder grew to awe when I thought of whole forests, and then into full-fledged worship as I contemplated the complexities of the ecosystem, the planet, the rhythms of the universe. Just as suddenly as it was gone, my faith returned.

I worship vastness. I worship mystery. I worship God: the acorn, the seedling, the root, the branch, the tree, the forest, the nest, the egg, the bird, the feather, the insect, the sun, the rain, the dormancy, the storm, the lightning, the fire, the firefighter, the heat, the ash, the debris, the return: the bird, the acorn, the seedling, the rain...

When I was a child, my favorite hymn was:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colors,
He made their tiny wings.

The purple headed mountains,
The river running by,
The sunset and the morning
That brightens up the sky.

The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them every one.

The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
To gather every day.

He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.

Words: Cecil F. Alexander, Hymns for Little Children, 1848. Music: “Royal Oak,” 17th Century English melody; arranged by Martin F. Shaw, 1915.

I still like that hymn, but I might add a few new lyrics:

The dark and cold of winter,
The moonless, sleepless night,
Christ's pleading in the garden,
And morning's dawning light.

The storm that shakes foundations,
The fire that thins the woods,
The sorrow and the struggle
That make me long for good.

The pain that comes from growing,
The sweetness of the new,
The grief that comes with promise,
That love will see me through.

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small.
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

Life is beautiful and good, even as it is complex and confusing. There is no easy answer, but there is beauty everywhere. That is enough for me.