Diversity

            My mother always says she is glad that she hears about my adventures as a missionary after I am home safe and sound.  One of those memorable trips took place about nine years ago when I joined two other young women on a long bus ride to the Pantanal, the largest swamp in the world.  Our adventures in southern Brazil remain in my memory as unforgettable lessons in nature’s classroom.  It was through those experiences that I learned the basic, intrinsic, values of diversity in nature and among people as an expression of God’s creativity and imagination.  Diversity, exposed in millions of different plants, insects, animals, and people, is mystery that stretches the limits of our comprehension and a fingerprint that gives evidence to the unfathomable magnitude of the Creator. 

            Diversity demands that we develop a profound respect for life in all of its different manifestations.   To this day, I am not really sure how we ended up riding with 8 other women from 6 different countries on a dilapidated pick up truck that broke down multiple times on an abandoned dirt road going into the swamp.  It took all day, but we finally arrived at a campsite set up by our Brazilian and Danish guides at the edge of one of the tributaries of the Paraguay River.  We laughed over dinner trying to understand the mix of English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Danish, and French, and then, feeling exhausted from the journey, decided to get ready for bed.  Yvette and I headed down to the edge of the water to brush our teeth.  Suddenly, I spotted two green marbles in the water about four feet from where we were standing.  With my mouth foaming with toothpaste, I asked Yvette what she thought those pale lights were.  When she turned on her flashlight, we discovered that the marbles were the eyes of a nine-foot alligator!  We almost choked on our toothpaste as we carefully began stepping backward away from the water’s edge.   The next morning, the guide showed us the carcass of another alligator near where we had been standing.  He explained that the dead alligator had been the companion to the one we had seen in the water, but while they had been away from camp a few weeks before, poachers had killed it.  Suddenly our fear of the solitary alligator turned into a new appreciation for life so easily snatched away.

            Diversity invites us into a new awareness of the world we inhabit and into a sense of awe before the Creator’s magnificent handiwork.  One afternoon in the Pantanal,  the Brazilian guide offered to take us on a long hike through an area of grasslands.  Just as the sun was touching the tips of the tall grasses and painting them yellow, red, and orange, our guide motioned us to be quiet and to follow him quickly.  He headed off the trail,  trotting quickly toward a large, shaggy, dark figure.  When we were just a few yards away, I recognized the animal: it was a giant anteater!  The guide told us it was one of the largest he had ever seen, measuring well over six feet from it’s long snout to the tip of its stringy tail.  The whole scene still fills me with wonder as I remember the sun sinking slowly down into the horizon, the anteater scuffling the ground looking for dinner, the howler monkeys screaming in the distance, the dozens of different bird calls, and the burnt sweet smell of the toasted grass. 

            Appreciating diversity requires humility and patience.  Our Danish guide told us that it wasn’t the anacondas, alligators, poisonous snakes, or jaguars that bothered him about living in the middle of the swamp.  It was the insects.  The insects showed no prejudice; they were completely impartial. They stung and bit us all: Europeans, North Americans,  South Americans, rich, poor, thin, fat, short, tall, pretty, ugly. To the insects we were all the same, and no one could take on airs of superiority, no one could claim to be free of bumps and rashes.  It is amazing how humbling itching can be.    The constant buzzing, whining, flying, crawling in our hair, under our clothes, and even inside our shoes while we were wearing them sorely tried our patience.  There were two choices: to go mad or to accept the fact that the insects ruled the Pantanal.           

Opening ourselves to exploring diversity of life is a risky business.  Our participation in the discovery process can radically change our perspectives and beliefs about ourselves, about others, and about God.  We went fishing in the Pantanal.  We were excited as school boys playing hooky as we made some old-fashioned cane poles, grabbed a container of chicken innards, and set out single file first along the path beside the river and then crossing the waist deep water several times.  When we found a quiet corner, the guide said “this is a good place to fish.”   In a few minutes, I had the first bite.  When the fish landed on the bank squirming and flapping, I recognized its large, razor sharp, white teeth.  Piranhas!   I stuck a stick as thick as my thumb in its mouth, and with one snap of the powerful jaws, it split in two.  The guide calmly told us that where there are still waters, there are also piranhas, and where there are piranhas, there are alligators.  Gulp!  Suddenly the happy and rollicking hike along the river turned frightening and ominous.  In our ignorance, we had followed our guide wading from bank to bank.  We would have to retrace our steps now knowing that we would be sharing the river with piranhas and alligators.  Where before we had been oblivious to the danger or need to trust our guide, now we paid close attention to his indications and carefully followed his lead.

 Nothing had changed in the environment from the time we started on the hike to when we got back to camp and broiled our large catch of fish, yet everything seemed different.   We had been transformed.  Through our new knowledge, we were forced to accept the swamp as a full package, with all of its beauty stretching out before us and with the dangers lurking in the calm waters.  Perhaps this fine line between fear and curiosity,  the unknown and the yet to be discovered, the safe and the dangerous, is the same tension we experience as we explore the earth’s diversity,  enter into new relationships with others, or dare to open our lives to God.