A Terrible Beauty

In his poem “Easter, 1916,” W. B. Yeats writes of a “terrible beauty” being born out of the transformation of ordinary men and women into fighters for the independence of Ireland from England.

That phrase came to my mind as I walked through national parks of the Southwest—Bryce Canyon, Zion, Arches, and The Grand Canyon as I marveled at the transformations that had occurred over centuries of eruptions, water and wind erosions, and human habitation. The Hoodoos in Bryce were stunning, exhibiting a variety of colors depending on the sedimentary layers as well as the play of sunlight on the curves and plateaus. Arches, both still standing formations and crumbled ones, were formidable yet delicate, apparent by those standing tall above us and those whose fallen rock between two columns attested. I stood agape at the depth of the Grand Canyon and marveled at the force it took to carve out a canyon over a mile deep and 270 miles long.

A terrible beauty: terrible because of the unrelenting forces that formed these grandiose structures; beauty from the display of shapes and colors that cannot be duplicated by human hands. The strange pairing of the two words led me to ponder how our own lives may also be described as a “terrible beauty.”

The Bible abounds with oxymorons, seeming contradictions which, nevertheless, contain truth. In Romans 6: 22, Paul writes that we are “free from sin” yet “slaves to God.”  The juxtaposition of “free” and “slave” or servant” appears to be incompatible. Yet it is only by being free from the bondage of sin that we can willingly bind ourselves to God to grow into Christlikeness. The freedom we gain by becoming slaves brings holiness and eternal life—conditions of terrible beauty.

Paul frequently uses ironic phrases as he describes his relationship with Christ. Second Corinthians 12: 10 finds him declaring “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  Paul made known his weaknesses and hardships: the thorn in his side, persecutions, imprisonment, death threats. Yet he was able to endure these moments which to the world made him look weak because of his leaning into the strength of Christ. And through these trials, he wrote the epistles that help us understand what a relationship with Jesus Christ is like; we are “more than conquerors” because of the terrible beauty of bearing up under our difficulties with Christ standing beside us, upholding us. Through it all, we are being transformed into the beings God intends us to be.

We have forces at work on us daily. The world tries to shape us into beings reflecting the world, where power and money and image are the desired goals in determining who we should be. What happens then when power and money are lost or when we cannot attain the desired image? What happens when we experience the loss of loved ones or jobs or belongings? We can become physically ill or depressed. We give up, feeling hopeless, despairing. Or we slog along, becoming satisfied with the idea that this (whatever the situation is) is the best we can expect.

When we allow God to shape us, however, those experiences become forces which transform us into the spiritual shape God intends. We turn to God in our weaknesses and become strong in our growing awareness of God in us and we in Him. In spite of situations that cause hardship and pain, we endure. We learn patience, compassion, self-control—fruits of the Spirit!

Just as the formations in the canyons we visited in the Southwest were formed over centuries or millennia, so the transformations within us may take years and we don’t realize what has changed until we reflect on where and who we were decades ago or even last year. Some changes are abrupt, sudden, unexpected, like an eruption occurring in the desert creating ridges and arches that continue to change with the continuous actions of nature. These experiences at the time may seem “terrible;” but with hindsight, we can see the beauty that emerges as we become more like Christ, reflecting God’s glory. The terrible pain of change reveals the beauty of the image of God.