When the Mountains Crumble into the Depths of the Sea
The lessons we can learn from impermanence of permanent things.
Few are the things which stand as magnificent constants in our fragile world of rapid change. But when we happen upon such a constant — something which endures throughout the onslaughts of time and change — it commands (and demands) that our attention fixes upon its permanence. We are in the presence of something awesome, something sublime, and something which can teach us great and abounding truths about ourselves and the world. Stopping, staring, and delighting is the proper response in the presence of such sublimity.
Nothing in creation commands this disposition quite like mountains do. The Jungfrau, Mount Rainier, Mount Everest: these are the bastions of permanence amidst the chaos of our unstable and uncertain world; the towering peaks whose grandeur put us in our rightful, humble, and limited place: “what is man that You are mindful of him? And the son of man that You care for him?” Mountains remind us that we are a mere tiny speck on the face of this earth: as changeable as the tides in our emotions, fashions, affections, and health, whilst they stand for millennia with little change at all.
But though it can be unnerving to stand in their presence, the permanence of mountains can be surprisingly comforting. In this modern era of constant and rapid change, the mountains stand unmovable and unshakable. They have been seen by many eyes before us and will continue to be seen by many eyes once our transient bodies have returned to dust. We can trust in the steadfastness of the mountains — more so in the One who made them all.
The mountains were designed to be steadfast testaments in this age of fickleness. Perhaps this is why so many of us find the act of ‘mountaintop removal’ so obscene. This act of monumental hubris is one of the ugliest expressions of mankind wielding his near infinite power to effect near infinite destruction to a piece of the earth.1 To get at the coal beneath the Appalachian peaks, man destroys one of the most enduring of creation’s masterpieces, a created feature that it is almost sacrilegious to remove, and all at the press of a detonator button.
Vanity of vanity. Ugliness upon ugliness. “Stupidity in concentration”.2
Our blasting away of these forested peaks and the subsequent infill of lush river valleys with the waste rubble spoil, creates a landscape of utter destruction and desolation. This is a prime example of an outcome perfectly reflecting the horrors to the act itself: the landscape of desolation is the fitting final testimony to the act of the desecration of the sublime. And all this to get at some dirty coal to power our power stations so we can continue our trivial pursuits.
“Mountaintop removal is an emblematic act. Along with nuclear testing, this is the most dramatic rupture of the created order that North Americans have effected on our own continent… we are proceeding to return God’s handiwork to utter formlessness and waste, stripping bare one of the most biologically diverse temperate forests in the world.”3
That was Ellen Davis’ withering and brutal critique of the wretched process. She gets to the heart of what is going on: the return of God’s magnificent handiwork to a formless, ugly void — all at the hands of the stewards He entrusted the care of His masterpiece to.
Vanity of vanity. Ugliness upon ugliness. “Stupidity in concentration”.
However, though the act of mountaintop removal is utterly abhorrent and wasteful (the coal we extract in no way compensates for the irreversible destruction wrought) it should be noted that we have exponentially sped up a process which was already on going. Under the decaying forces of ice and wind, water and heat — and myriads of hiking boots — the mountains around us all are slowly, and imperceptibly, eroding: eaten away by the forces that sculpt and mould the earth over aeons of time. Every rock fall, every tumble of scree, and every mountain stream that flows, takes away something of the mountain along with it. Given enough time — lots and lots of time — even Mount Everest will eventually disintegrate down into a level plain where flowers bloom and cattle may graze. Nothing is permanent, nothing is lasting, nothing ultimately endures under the sun.
The crucial difference, though, between the slow and imperceptible erosion of the mountains by nature, and the dynamite destruction of mountaintop removal by man, is the differences in speed and power of the two actions. The results of these differences could not be starker. Under the slow gentle hand of nature, the mountains are transformed into new and abundant habitats where life and beauty flourish. Under the abrupt and destructive hand of greedy man, the mountains are transformed into a desolation where ugliness and death abound.
The ashes of the mountains — the rubble and rock — whether formed by erosion or mountaintop removal, must end up somewhere. Nothing stays static for long in nature. The geomorphological processes of mass movement, solution, saltation, suspension, and traction will slowly but surely, transport the mountains’ remains on a lengthy pilgrimage along streams, rivers, and seas, until finally they reach the depths of the ocean. Gravity thus pulls what once stood high and immovable above the ground down to the dark depths of the deepest abyss.4 A natural irony, perhaps.
But though you might think so, the deep abyss is not the final resting place for the mountains. Their story is not over; they will get the last laugh. As you read these very words, new mountains are currently being formed by the immense forces that move the earth’s crust. The material for these future mountains must come from somewhere, and as you have probably now guessed, the rocky remains of past mountains — now compressed into the earth’s crust and molten mantle — will become the mountains of the future as the earth’s crust rises out of the depths.
And so, “though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea”, new mountains will rise from its depths. Thus, this earth will never be left devoid of the steadfast and permanent testimony of the mountains and the lessons we can learn from them — though the individual mountains themselves will rise and fall. And that permanent fact brings me great joy.
Like the dynamic impermanence of the seemingly permanent mountains, next to nothing remains permanent on this changing world.5 Though this thought may depress us, knowing that our legacies are included in the list of the impermanent, we can, however, take comfort in the “impermanence of things”. Though what is good, right, and beautiful eventually succumbs to decay and degradation, so too does that which is evil, perverse, and ugly. The seemingly invincible ideologies, technologies, and empires that confront us will one day succumb to the dust. History is littered with the fallen remains of once mighty despots, decaying inventions that were once held in high esteem,6 and evil ideologies that fell into disrepute and derision. And the future will be littered thus the same.
I don’t normally like doing this (as an Englishman who naturally shirks from self-promotion), but if you enjoyed this piece, consider giving it a like (the heart button). I ask this as in the age of wretched algorithms, the more likes I get the more widely distributed my work is to new audiences. Which helps this young writer a lot.
This essay is free, but any tips given (or paid subscriptions) support my work, help me to write more pieces, and are greatly received by this young writer.
Wendell Berry, The Use of Energy.
Stupidity in Concentration is Wendell Berry’s term.
Ellen Davis (2009), Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture. Cambridge University Press. p.12
This paragraph was inspired by G.H. Dury (1966), The Face of the Earth. Pelican. p.4
Apart from, of course, the very Word that was written down by the Changeless One.
Think of the number of iPhones now wasting away forgotten in the bottom of your draws.
Speaking as someone who has lived most his life in the Seattle area, the looming presence of Mt Rainier is a constant reminder of impermanence. Not a month goes by when there's not a slight shaking somewhere in the Salish Sea to remind us that we sit on major fault lines. Those of us old enough to recall Mt St Helens know that the Cascades are a volcanic range. The beauty of the mountains we have around us (and I consider the PNW one of the most beautiful places to live in the U.S.) comes only because they are impermanent and always changing, as various tectonic plates slam into each other beneath our feet and push up our volcanic peaks. When 'the mountain is out' (a common phrase that means it's not being hidden by grey clouds), we are reminded of the impermanence of even something as majestic as Rainier.
I cannot help but think that we humans are doing our level best to behead the world. It feels deeply comforting to me to know that eventually we will collectively answer to the strength and cycles of the earth, however much we fancy it to be the other way around.