beauty
I know there is a lot of darkness and ugliness in the world, but I'm so thankful that there is a lot of beauty too. There is beauty in nature, in art, in music, in people, in so many unexpected places of daily life.
Whenever I am stressed or feeling out of sorts, I try to take some time to pause, look around me and see or listen: see the lovely sunlight cast its long shadows through the tree leaves outside my window, hear the exuberant laughter from the kids splashing around in the pool near our home. Taking in the life around me always tends to bring a smile to my face, reminding me that there is beauty in the everyday.
Other experiences that often move me to aesthetic pleasure: listening to a beautiful song, feeling its soul-thrilling melody bring inexplicable delight and joy; reading something well-written, enjoying each well-turned phrase and felicitous expression; seeing beautiful colors in nature (flowers) or man-made (clothing, shoes, purses, art), relishing in the bright hues, the intensity of shade, the suppleness of texture. There's something refreshing and restful about these simple pleasures .
God is such a creative God, and one of the ways he has made us in his image is to endow us with creativity and aesthetic appreciation. How wonderful it is to see, hear, feel, and just enjoy beauty. To sense it in all of its dimensions; to sense life. It's in these moments of experiencing beauty that I also experience God--praising him for the incredible gift of life.
Whenever I am stressed or feeling out of sorts, I try to take some time to pause, look around me and see or listen: see the lovely sunlight cast its long shadows through the tree leaves outside my window, hear the exuberant laughter from the kids splashing around in the pool near our home. Taking in the life around me always tends to bring a smile to my face, reminding me that there is beauty in the everyday.
Other experiences that often move me to aesthetic pleasure: listening to a beautiful song, feeling its soul-thrilling melody bring inexplicable delight and joy; reading something well-written, enjoying each well-turned phrase and felicitous expression; seeing beautiful colors in nature (flowers) or man-made (clothing, shoes, purses, art), relishing in the bright hues, the intensity of shade, the suppleness of texture. There's something refreshing and restful about these simple pleasures .
God is such a creative God, and one of the ways he has made us in his image is to endow us with creativity and aesthetic appreciation. How wonderful it is to see, hear, feel, and just enjoy beauty. To sense it in all of its dimensions; to sense life. It's in these moments of experiencing beauty that I also experience God--praising him for the incredible gift of life.
posted by mariyaya | 9:06 PM
2 Comments:
Good post.
Is the cross more beautiful than these? How is Christ "fairer still today", despite the fact that there was nothing in him that we should esteem him, in a worldly sense? "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2-4)
Somehow, I think God's idea of beauty is both inline and contrary to this world's and I'm not exactly sure where the line is. I just know that it's often in the broken things, the ugly things, that a sense of divine beauty lies. But the world never sees it.
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