Nature shows beauty born through turbulence and trial
I just got back this past week from a team retreat on the Maine coast, a remarkable landscape known for its rocky, rugged, weathered look. From what I hear, winters here are long and harsh, and the coastline bears the full brunt of the wild North Atlantic. For eons, the unforgiving elements of nature have left their mark on the terrain, turbulently shaping an environment that is incredibly beautiful as a result.
The naturally chiseled and patterned boulders and cliffs lining the shore are rock solid from millennia of violent clashes between the land and the sea. What once might have been nothing more than sand and sediment has become unmovable behemoths that break the massive waves as they come in from the open ocean. This all happened over a period of time and through forces that ought to make any human being feel infinitesimally small and fleeting by comparison.
Even a short distance inland, many trees in the Maine woods have a distinctly stunted and sculpted look, which isn’t surprising. They’ve grown up and thrived in spite of the sometimes severe maritime conditions that typify this northern latitude. As a result, they collectively form some of the most uniquely and sublimely spectacular forests in North America.
There’s a metaphorical significance to all of this, I think: In many cases, the greatest beauty in the universe takes shape neither overnight nor through easy or agreeable circumstances. To the contrary, profound beauty often comes only through trials, tribulations, turmoil, and trauma over an excruciatingly long and laborious period of time. Indeed, the most captivating sights to behold in nature and in life more broadly are inevitably enhanced and made greater by the hardships they endured and the scars they bear.
