Tortured Beauty

Today, I saw my first cotton field in bloom. It was beautiful, in the present tense. I pulled over taking in the beauty of the cotton plant but my eyes could not look past the past. Cotton once turned our nation red. All I could think was how tragic. The cotton plant is not the blame - man and his greed alone are culpable. Value is attached to a plant, mineral, natural resource or whatever and people are exploited and subjugated to harvest, mine or assemble the valued resource with no regard to the human labor. A plant, mineral, or product is now valued more than human life.

That is the past I see in this cotton field. I saw a field of tortured beauty. What God had created was good. What man can do with this good is often unthinkable. My present and past tense with this field is one God shares. God looked upon the Son on the Cross - tortured beauty. The good God had given in Christ was exploited and subjugated to the cross.

Until the kingdom comes on earth we must be satisfied to witness beauty even if it is a tortured beauty.