Dangerous Beauty

I am writing this the day after a massive ice storm has hit the Midwest. Having spent most of my life in the desert or on the west coast, I have never seen such a thing. All over the St. Louis area where I live, tree branches and power lines are down, schools are closed, and 450,000 people are without electricity. Fortunately, I have not heard any reports of injuries or major damage.

As I drove around the sun came out, lighting up the trees more brightly than any number of Christmas lights ever could. Stripped of their leaves, they had seemingly been turned to glass. I was awestruck by the stark beauty of the scene.

I stopped by the house of a friend who was without power. I found him at his neighbor’s house, cutting up some branches from fallen limbs. Working on frozen branches with a chain-saw in the cold will take some of the beauty out of the scene for you. When we finished, I mentioned how beautiful the trees looked, gleaming in the sun. He looked around and said, “Beautiful. But dangerous.”

How true. The branches on these trees, still filled with sap here at the end of fall, become quite heavy when covered with ice. When the wind blows, or when they get too heavy, or when they are too old, they break and fall. This is the primary reason that so many lack electricity today and may for the next few days. Although there have been no serious injury reports yet, it is not for nothing that my father-in-law calls ice-covered branches “widow-makers.”

Driving home, I was still enjoying the sight, but yet pondering the paradox. How can something so pleasing be so deadly? Then I thought of what the Book of Proverbs say of the adulterous woman:

“For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life, keeping you from the immoral woman, from the smooth tongue of the wayward wife. Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes, for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life. Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned? Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.” (Proverbs 6:23-29, NIV)

“With persuasive words she led him astray; she seduced him with her smooth talk. All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life. Now then, my sons, listen to me; pay attention to what I say. Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.” (Proverbs 7:21-27, NIV)

God does not say that the adulteress is not beautiful or desirable; this is not the real issue though. Sin has to be attractive in some way—why else would anyone do it? In the end, of course, sin destroys us and the beauty that we so desired tarnishes so easily, especially when compared to the trouble that we reap.

The answer is not to reject beauty, God makes things that are beautiful. Rather, we are to examine everything we see with eyes open to what pleases God and what is best for us.