Into the Wild

Laura Booz: We recently went to an indoor waterpark where our kids zipped down the waterslides and floated in tubes around the lazy river. They played keep-away in the basketball pool. They balanced on giant floating plastic lilypads. And they bravely endured a giant bucket of water dumping on their heads. 

And then, they discovered the wave pool. 

Hi there! You’re listening to Expect Something Beautiful with Laura Booz. I hope today’s episode stirs your spirit. 

A wave pool is basically an indoor swimming pool with a cement floor and chlorinated water, but it’s in the shape of a beach or a shoreline. When the waves are turned off, the swimmers play tag and relax and chat. 

Then every fifteen minutes, a bell rings and everyone screams with glee and a series of steady waves mysteriously emerges from the wall in the deep end. 

Swimmers rise and fall and swim and dive as the waves pass by one after another, lapsing to the cement shore where the toddlers play. 

Our kids spent hours in the waves. Oh, they got tired of the slides and the buckets, but they never tired of that wave pool. And it seemed like they were not the only ones! Everybody seemed to flock to the wave pool. 

I couldn’t help but notice that out of everything in the waterpark, the wave pool was the most like nature. It was the most like the ocean.

When I shared this realization with my son, he said, “Yeah, Mom, but the wave pool is safe. There are lifeguards on every side, and every wave is the same exact size and comes in a predictable rhythm.” He added, “And the water is clear. You know that you are not sharing it with any unknown, unseen critters with claws and jaws and fins and stingers.” Then he shrugged his shoulders and said, “I think that’s why everybody loves it.”

I don’t mind that they loved it. In fact, I enjoyed watching them enjoy it. But you know, it did make me look forward to going to the ocean this summer. The ocean, where we will stand on the shoreline and squint at the horizon and not be able to see the end of it, where every wave will surprise us, and we will not be able to predict how high, how fast, how far, how often, because the waves will be obeying a force of nature far more mysterious than the machine in the wall at the waterpark. 

Even the weather will be unpredictable. The sun will burn our skin, and the wind will whip our hair and steal our sun hats. The sand will shift beneath our feet. The water temperatures will shock and invigorate us. Mysteries will fill the depths below us. Creatures with pincers and teeth and stingers and fins will share the waves with us. 

And no doubt, our vulnerability will be top of mind, and we will have proper respect for our surroundings. 

Oh, I know we will have fun. Though it won’t be the type of fun that is pure amusement. It will be the type of fun that reminds you you’re alive. Because the sea reminds us that we are not so big and comforts us that there is someone far, far bigger. 

Oh, I hope our hearts are stirred to pause and remember a few verses from Psalm 104, that say:

O LORD, how manifold are your works!
   In wisdom have you made them all;
   the earth is full of your creatures.
Here is the sea, great and wide,
   which teems with creatures innumerable,
   living things both small and great.
There go the ships,
   and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.

These all look to you,
   to give them their food in due season.
When you give it to them, they gather it up;
   when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
   when you take away their breath, they die
   and return to their dust.
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
   and you renew the face of the ground.

May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
   may the LORD rejoice in his works,
who looks on the earth and it trembles,
   who touches the mountains and they smoke!

This all came to mind when I was recently reading about Solomon’s house, of the forest of Lebanon, in 1 King 7. Solomon was building his own house at the same time he was building the temple. 

Scripture describes this portion of Solomon’s house as being filled with forty-five pillars, fifteen in each row. It says that there were window frames on the outside in three rows. Window opposite window in three tiers. 

Can you imagine being in this space? Surrounded by forty-five carefully hewn cedar pillars. So tall and square, measured and arranged just so. I imagine the silence of this space. Then I imagine the sunlight streaming through the windows, and the checkered light and shadows shifting from one side of the room to the other, as one day gives way to another. 

And then I imagine breathing in and letting the aroma of the cedars fill my entire body. What a house! What a forest! And yet, so different than a real forest.

So different from the pine forest in my backyard, anyway, where I stumble over loopy roots and trip over rocks. Where the undergrowth scratches my legs as I wrestle with vines that twist and turn like relentless explorers. 

In Solomon’s forest there’d be no rotting logs, no messy birds or wild animals, no bugs or snakes or poisons. No pine cones or acorns or sap. No death or decay. But also, no seasons, no quiet snow filling the woods with wonder. No bursts of color as Spring comes forth, no germination, no growth, no bird songs, no life. 

As much as I would love to stand in the midst of the house of the forest of Lebanon, I hope I wouldn’t stay too long and forget the real woods. 

I hope I wouldn’t grow accustomed to its convenience or become addicted to the sense of control it gave. I hope I wouldn’t despise good hard work or avoid the messiness that comes from living with people and creatures. 

I hope I wouldn’t begin to trust in my own sense of safety or fall in love with the work of my own hands. I hope I wouldn’t begin to believe that there was nothing better in the world. 

Instead, I hope those tall square pillars would send me to the real forest, where leaves would crackle under foot and birds would sing and cackle and caw. I would look up into the lofty tree tops and think about God. 

My heart would be stirred with a portion from Psalm 104 that says,

The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly,
   the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
In them the birds build their nests;
   the stork has her home in the fir trees.

I would pick black raspberries from the vine and enjoy their juicy sweetness, even though the seeds would get stuck in my teeth. And I’d fill my pockets with pinecones, getting sap on my fingertips. And every time an animal would skitter by, I know I’d catch my breath and look for its whereabouts. The sun would set and an owl would swoop by, making me tug my sweater closer and head for home, provoked to pray. 

Because I’d feel small and fragile . . . but deliciously alive. 

Psalm 104 concludes its rousing reflection on God’s work of creation like this,

I will sing to the LORD as long as I live;
   I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my meditation be pleasing to him,
   for I rejoice in the Lord.
Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
   and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
Praise the LORD! (vv. 24–35)

I invite you, dear listener, into the wild. 

Expect Something Beautiful is a production of Revive Our Hearts calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.