Harnish: Why so many shades of brown?

Jack Harnish

Guest Columnist 

The Okavango Delta, in Botswana. sounds like it would be flooded with water, and in the rainy season it is.

The mud holes fill with water and everything turns green.

But we are here at the end of the dry season, when it hasn't rained for months. The flood plain in front of our camp tent is dusty and dry, with just a small patch of gray mud in the middle. Even so, it is enough to attract a huge parade of elephants, scores of impalas and a few warthogs. Overall, the land is brown and gray, dusty and arid, with only a few scattered green trees to offer shade in the blistering afternoon heat.

And still, one wonders, "why so many shades of brown? Wouldn't one have been enough?" Why the incredible beauty of the elegant spotted leopard who roamed through our camp? Why the dazzling array of birds which, it seems, should have been eliminated in the survival of the fittest? Why the mottled brown/black/white/yellow hide of the wild dogs, the second most endangered species in Africa? Why this riot of color and diversity of animals, birds, plants and land formations in this vast terrain?

Oh, I know it can be explained by science and heredity, evolution and adaptation, ecology and environmental factors and I am grateful for all of that wisdom. But for me, behind it all there stands a lovingly exuberant creator who delights in the riot of color; a creator who giggles over the antics of the mongoose and the crazy look of the warthog. My wife said the warthog looks like God had some leftover parts and just threw them all together and I think she's right.

A divine Creator who simply can't settle for just one shade of brown.

The hymn that keeps humming through my mind: "All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small; All things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all."

I'm thankful for a God who loves such diversity, a God who creates so many shades of brown in Africa...and in the human family as well.

Jack Harnish is currently on safari in Africa, traveling from his home in Benzie County.