Reefs Over Wreckage

Above the reef, midnight parrotfish dance, their bodies inky purple against a brilliant crystal backdrop where sunlight slants through water. Various other fish dart in and out of coral mansions, frolicking throughout their neighborhood. Millions of tiny sounds reverberate through the water—the snipping of crab claws, crackling of feeding shrimp, the scrape of parrotfish teeth. Like a brilliant, haphazard garden along the seafloor, the coral animals bloom. I am a visitor among them, a diver’s dark neoprene silhouette in a world awash with color, drifting in current above the substrate.

In scientific terms, the word substrate refers to any surface on which living things grow. It is the underlying substance, the inmost layer, a form of foundation. Garden dirt is substrate for planted seeds. The sea floor is substrate for coral reefs. Science is substrate for my faith.

I notice a peculiar object within the coral-covered substrate below. Straight and sharp-edged, its outline contradicts the abstract growth patterns of the natural world. A long, metal bar is tucked within the reef, partially overgrown with strands of luxurious, green algae and studded with plump, neon sponges. This is the rail of a railroad, a metal piece that would unite with more of its kind to form a path across wooden ties on land. As I continue my underwater survey, I discover more than a dozen of its companion rails laying scattered along this reef, an inanimate track to nowhere in a field of living creatures.

I eventually learned that these rails were spilled cargo, dropped from the deck of a transport ship amidst the unruly waves of a tropical storm, many years ago. To an ecologist, a scientist who studies relationships within the environment, the rails would be considered marine debris or pollution. To an anthropologist, a scientist who studies humankind, the rails are historical artifacts. Ecologists and anthropologists occasionally get into heated debates about whether items, such as rails on a coral reef, should be removed from the environment. Ecologists tend to be concerned for the lives of organisms impacted by humans, whereas anthropologists are concerned with the legacy of humankind. Whether taking the ecological or anthropological perspective, the rails are a clear testament to the presence and impact of humankind—we who have left no ecosystem on our blue planet untouched.

These rails are a new kind of substrate. Overlaid by sponges and algae, overgrown by zoanthids and gorgonians, overtopping the burrows of scuttley lobster and tiny gobies, these rails have become so integrated within the surrounding environment that they have become a part of it. Now deeply connected, perhaps it would be more damaging to remove the rails than it is to leave them be.

As a diver, I have observed other situations like this, where anthropogenic impact smacks up against ecological communities in a unique shuffle of redefined normality. Forty-something feet below the surface, where currents swirl sand to create a hazy fog, there lies a vast graveyard of anchors. Varying in size, shape, and style, these anchors are the remnants of boat after boat that lost their hooks to the seafloor. This place belongs to lionfish, who congregate with striped bodies and barbed, splayed fins to nest within the anchors’ arms. Farther out, the HMS Tyger has weathered away to nothing but its cannons, arrayed across a bed of lacy purple sea fans and feathery, mustard-colored sea rods. Cascades of translucent moon jellies pulse tenderly through the surrounding water, like glowing stars.

These anthropogenic creations—rails, anchors, cannons—have become places that belong to the lives that now inhabit them. Though their presence first harmed the environment they entered, there is now an emerging unity, an integration with ecology, a transformation into substrate. Just as the metal parts of a lost underwater railroad can morph into foundation for a flourishing reef, the broken pieces of our world can be transformed by we who dwell in it.

What if Christians softened the sharp edges of this world, like marine life that slowly transforms underwater wreckage into places of beauty? What if we stood in the gaps of this fractured place until it became a whole and holy ecosystem, bringing praise to our Creator? How would things change if we truly loved the world like God does? His kind of love is infinitely beyond anything we can self-manufacture; his love always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres (1 Corinthians 13:7). He loves the world so much that he gave his one and only Son to reconcile all of creation to himself (John 3:16, Colossians 1:20). We love him because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Just as railroad rails, lost anchors, or a remnant shipwreck can become ecological havens, substrate for underwater communities, our broken world has the future of restored heaven, being presently transformed by the love of God through us. As we endeavor to engage in challenging conversations like ecologists and anthropologists, might we remember to be charitable of other viewpoints while allowing ourselves to be wrecked for this world as Jesus was, that his kingdom would continue to come even through us. Among the metaphorical railroad debris, lost anchors, and scattered cannons, may we become like the reefs, softly overgrowing the harsh edges of this world, colorfully creating beauty in places of brokenness, and blooming with life in dark and deep waters.