Disorderly Miracles

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

In our walk at the Oskewatchie Hills Preserve this morning, we came upon this scene, and when I looked at the photograph later, the word ‘tangled’ came to mind.

Indeed, everything in this scene seems thrown together in a jumble – trees, twigs, stones, leaves, and sky all enmeshed in a messy kind of togetherness. But then it quickly came to me that everything – all of reality – can seem to be in mazelike disarray, a wild collection of things that somehow collide together and then flutter off to find more ways to be scrambled. What I love, though, is that many of these scrambles and messes and mishmashes of life, when I look at them carefully, have a pronounced overtone of orderliness in them, as in this very commonplace scene in the Oskewatchie Preserve. Yes, everything here might seem like confusion and chaos, but it’s just nature’s way of making systematized, moment-by-moment marvels – everyday fusions that are bafflingly beautiful.

I’m glad I stopped today on the trail and noticed this disorderly miracle.