To Infinity and Beyond

Yesterday we had a brush with infinity. My wife and I were hiking along the Skógá River above Skogafoss, one of Iceland’s most striking waterfalls.

The falls are post-card perfect – an impressive 60 meter sheer drop (higher than Niagara) into a thundering pool (often with a double rainbow effect). The rugged rocks on either side and the jet-black sand on the flat plain along the river below the falls give a dramatic framing. No wonder legends of buried Viking gold grew up around this place; no wonder tourists shoot a zillion photos.

Climbing 380 steps to see the falls from above drew us into an adventure of discovery. A stile over a fence at the top beckoned us further up and further in. Little did we know the wonders that awaited.

The Skógá is a glacial-melt river with head-waters 6 miles upstream on the slopes of Eyjafjallajökull, the mountain that erupted in 2010 disrupting air traffic all over Europe. The volcano is quiet for now, but the river is very much alive, tumbling down 23 cataracts and rapids before its final drop and leisurely flow another 5 kms to the Atlantic.

Rounding a curve in the path, the first of these caught us by surprise – the sounds and sights of a triple-ledge cascade. More photos, ooh’s and ahh’s and we walked on. Suddenly the rock-strewn canyon became a new torrent of white water with a wide flume curling in a 180 degree cork-screw - more exclamations of wonder. Above that, around another bend, a fourth and then a fifth wide chute. The sixth was a tumbling swath of rapids.

Tumbling water is always exhilarating, but in this rugged green and black landscape it is truly awesome. Every swirl of water is a study in beauty – an infinite kaleidoscope of white, blue and gray. And clinging to the edge of the rocks, the tiniest of flowers drinking in the mist from the river below. Add the symphonic sounds echoing through the canyon – and you get a hint of why I say we had a brush with the infinite.

At this point we had surfeited our capacity for beauty and wonder. We had to turn back knowing there were amazing worlds beyond us. We thought of C.S. Lewis’s words in The Last Battle – about “the Great Story . . . which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says “He has made everything beautiful in its time and set eternity in our hearts, but still we cannot fathom what God has done. But that limitation – that human finitude and frailty can’t stop us from reveling in the One who created it all!

Twenty-three cataracts carved over centuries of continuing geological and divine creativity - no wonder the Psalmist says - Psalm 145:3 - Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.

Perhaps that is why an Infinite God has promised eternity to share the pleasure of his creation with us.