Beauty … Everywhere

Theme for January: Abundance

Thursday, January 21, 2021

For most of my life, I thought of beauty as being something very special, and therefore scarce, something few and far between. There was beauty, yes, but there were also mounds and acres of plainness and ordinariness. What I’ve been happily understanding, though, over the past 40+ years, is that beauty is not only not scarce, but is actually everywhere. On my walk this morning in the Peace Sanctuary, I came across these scenes …

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which probalby few people would characterize as beautiful. But as I paused and studied them for a few moments, what I began to see were gracefully flowing patterns of stone, leaves, limbs, and twigs. For some reason, I imagined myself as someone who had suddenly, just then, been healed of blindness, and, as I stared, the elegance of the scenes started to materialize. Wow! I silently said over and over again, like a blind person stunned with brand-new vision. To someone with the new and astounding skill of eyesight, this old cliff and this tangle of tree limbs and leaves would be a blessing beyond belief. They would stand and stare, awestruck – which is what I did for a few beautiful moments this morning.