Of Acid and Caves

The other night I was killing time, waiting until I could leave to pick my son up from Christmas Carol practice. All I wanted to do was go to bed. I'd worked on a project for 12 hours that day, which is more hours than I usually devote to money-paying work in one day, and I was going to have to do the same thing the following two days to get the job done. But there were 30 minutes until I could leave for pick-up duty, so I was sitting on the couch watching an episode of Planet Earth with my oldest. It was the episode about caves, which I'd never seen because I'm terrified of bats and caves seem kind of repulsive to me.

They were talking about a cave in New Mexico, the Lechiguilla Cave, which is full of the most astounding crystals. I'd never seen anything like it. The interesting thing they said (if I heard them right in my sleepy stupor) is that the cave was carved out by sulphuric acid....and that's what makes the crystals so stunning and unusual.

It got me thinking. Sometimes, or most of the time, I am truly amazed by God. The beauty that he hides away in the dark places. The incredible creatures that lurk in the ocean depths. The crystals hidden in that cave, unseen for centuries. He does such beautiful things in the places that seem dark and frightening -- the places most people wouldn't want to or think to visit.

The Lechiguilla got me thinking about the darkest places in our hearts and lives, and the fact that sometimes the things that happen to us or the things we do to others are like acid eating away at us. The acid running like a river through us may be unseen by others, but we know it's there. We feel it wearing us away; for some of us, it flows year after year. We see no reason for the haunting pain; we want no part of it. Or perhaps we want to see some quantifiable and redemptive reason for it long before one can ever be seen.

But seeing those crystals made me feel at peace (at least temporarily) with the idea that we may never see quantifiable reasons for our pain... but that God can use its acid to carve astounding beauty within us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and if he wants to make use of the acid in our lives to make a temple of jagged and lovely crystals so that he can dwell in beauty -- a beauty that only he can truly see -- then who are we to argue?

A Book Recommendation

I just finished a great book -- Song Yet Sung by James McBride. Since I was whining about books a few months ago, I thought it would be nice if I actually passed a recommendation along. I won't tell you anything about it -- mainly because I should be working, not blogging -- but I will tell you that about thirty or forty pages into it, I nearly gave up on it. It seemed a little...weird. Some strange characters speaking in a strange code (in the story, the code is used by slaves to communicate vital information). But it was worth hanging in there. Check it out if you're looking for something great to read. The fact that the story is set on Maryland's Eastern Shore made it all the more interesting.

Next up for me: The Heretic's Daughter, a story told from the perspective of a ten-year-old girl whose mother is tried as a witch in the Salem witch trials. If it's great, I'll let you know.