Terrifying Beauty

I am a lover of nature and animals. I do not see them through binoculars, but through the vision of my own eyes. I am constantly looking. In the past few years I have learned some things about animals both domestic and wild. Many weekends I live in Dutchess County which is full of all kind of animals and one of the most common and perhaps least beloved is the deer. I happen to love deer. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania which has a lot of deer, but in my youth deer were still quite hidden and tucked away in the higher parts of the countryside. Occasionally when I was running on country roads I would see a beautiful doe running and she would give me inspiration. I could never catch her, but I would enjoy her beauty and her elegant stride. Now deer are plentiful, but they still give me great joy when I see them.

It is spring and the baby fawns are being born and it is not uncommon to see one wobbling across the yard or — dare I say — into the road. Recently a doe crossed in front of us as we were driving home from Rhinebeck. We were on a country road going very slowly, so the mother had plenty of time to run to the other side of the road and over a stone wall into a field. However, trailing behind her was her tiny fawn barely born and not quite able to get upright. I immediately got out of the car to get behind the fawn and help her across the road. She was so tiny I could have picked her up, but sensed that would not be a good thing. She was able to  hobble across the road as she began to learn better the art of walking. It takes the newborn fawn around an hour to learn to walk. It was beginning to rain and she quietly nestled into the leaves on this side of  the stone wall. Her mother watched from the field and leapt off into the woods. I was paralyzed as though someone had left their small baby with me and I did not know what to do. I went home and worried. I worried about the mother returning. I worried about the baby wobbling into the road. I worried about the rain pelting onto the young fawn’s coat.

Finally after dusk we drove back by the place where the fawn had been. There was the fawn’s imprint in the leaves, but she was gone. No sign of mother and child. What I learned that rain soaked night is the mother did not worry. Her plan was to  park the fawn down and come back later when I was gone.  I read that a doe will routinely leave her children and then come back for them. She knows them. If I had put a even a finger on this fawn, her mother would have rejected  her. When the baby is born the mother licks the entire child thus owning and knowing that fawn. They know each other. When the fawn is lost the mother has a distinct call and cry and the fawn knows it. I am an Episcopalian and when I read the words “the fawn knows the mother’s voice and the mother marks it as her own” it sounded familiar. In baptism we are marked and sealed as God’s own forever. We can’t flee from grace. It will always be with us in spite of our feelings and actions. All of us may not believe in this, but surely we can believe that nature reflects a terrifying beauty and a loving benevolence.

As Wendell Berry says above: “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief… For a time I rest in the grace of the world and am free.”

I learned several truths that night:

• Nature is terrifying and beautiful at the same moment. There are great risks, but there is no grief.
• We must be careful not to interfere as lovers of nature and animals. We must always show care and deep respect, but perhaps get out of the way if necessary.
  To quote Wendell Berry (who is so marvelous on nature and the environment):   ”In taking care of our fellow creatures, we acknowledge that they belong to an order and harmony of which we ourselves are parts. To answer to the perpetual crisis of our presence in this abounding and dangerous world, we have only the perpetual obligation of care.”
• There is an element of love that is out of our reach. The doe was coming back. She had no worry. If we can enjoy animals and nature without worry then we have “come into peace.”

“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”
— Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith