“Beauty is so quietly woven through our ordinary days that we hardly notice it. Everywhere there is tenderness, care and kindness, there is beauty.” ` John O’Donohue, Beauty, the Invisible Embrace
If we are to pay attention to Beauty, we want to know what it looks like. We are a practical people, we modern-agers. We need descriptions, we need Wikipedia entries, we need to look things up on Google. We are, as I’ve written, a people who look to measure and not to mean. But Beauty is all about meaning - it’s something we see with our whole selves, body, mind and spirit. And so, in order to really see it, we must put on a different pair of glasses.
Beauty is an experience met through every one of our physical senses. Our eyes take in the sunrise, or our newborn baby’s sweet face and we are filled with wonder. Our ears are awash with the sound of music; spirit wind whispers in the trees and calms our frazzled nerves. We are soothed by the feel of our dog’s soft fur under our palm. The caring touch of our lover’s hand comfort us. We smell flowers blooming and we breathe deeply to take it all inside us; we taste freshly baked bread and our hunger is sated.
On the surface these are small, ordinary things that happen to someone somewhere nearly every minute of every day. But seen through a hopeful heart and the wide-open eyes of wonder? They are Beautiful.
Beauty is an experience, something we get inside of, or that gets inside of us. But it is also a way of being in the world. A way we embody tenderness, care, and kindness in our relationships with ourselves, with one another, and with all creation. It’s taking time with our work and doing it with care. It’s making time to be quiet and listen for the voice of spirit rising within. It’s using our bodies to walk, to work, to dance and sing. It’s listening with close attention to the words of a friend. It’s offering comfort and care to someone who is ill. It’s refusing to give in to despair, even as it seems to be all around us. It’s standing up for what we believe is right in the ways that feel powerful to us.
I’m not going to tell you it’s always easy be in beauty. Right now, there are times when I feel so consumed with the sight of ugliness in this world that I can barely stand it. What’s left to be beautiful? But still, there it is. Your toddler brings you a fistful of flowers and plants a wet, sticky-mouthed kiss on your lips. You sink into a soft, warm bed after a cold, hard day. Someone you love forgives you unconditionally, even though you’ve betrayed them in a painful way.
Beauty exists, even in the midst of grief, anger, and fear. All of it accompanies us on this path of our precious lives. If you believe in holiness, you might recognize its presence when beauty appears in the midst of darkness. If you wonder what is grace? This would be it.
I often say I live at the intersection of bitter and sweet. Because I am by nature a melancholy person, my eyes tend to turn toward bitterness, toward what might go wrong with a situation instead of what might turn out to be alright. It wasn’t until my mother died that I realized how “bittersweet” is one word for a reason – it’s all one experience. My mother’s final illness and her death were truly the thing I had most dreaded ever since I was a tiny girl. You see, when I was four years old I watched my mother die right in front of me. Even though she did survive that experience (a dangerous allergic reaction to penicillin), for the rest of my life I was profoundly afraid of losing her.
It was 56 years later when she left her life on earth. And yes, it was horrible and terrible. I grieved mightily, and always will. But it was also beautiful and full of grace in a way I can barely describe because it still fills me with such awe and wonder. She assented to her death with intention, with quiet courage and thoughtful care for me. She was treated with respect and dignity by doctors and hospice caregivers. Afterwards, as I walked through days of missing her and grieving for her, at last I began to feel her spirit take up residence inside me. It was like nothing I’d felt before, but I knew this was beauty that could only come from something very holy. My life has never been the same, in a myriad of bittersweet ways.
Beauty then is a way of being, a way of seeing, a gift of holiness, or mystery. A grace.
I want to invite you into a tiny practice of Beauty. Get yourself a little notebook or some index cards. Every night before you go to bed, see if you can recall something Beautiful in your day, something that fit those descriptions I’ve shared with you. Something that made your heart soar, or tears come to your eyes. Maybe you felt a spontaneous smile, one wider than you’ve felt in a long time.
Write it down. If there was more than one, write them all down. After a week, go back and read what you’ve written. You will begin to see where patterns of beauty arise. You will begin to know what beauty looks like for you.
Because here’s something else that’s Beautiful about Beauty.
It’s different for everyone, it has unique meaning for everyone. The way you experience beauty may not be the same as the way I experience it. The way you express it in how you live and move and have your being may be different from the way I express it.
And that in itself is something so Beautiful, isn’t it? Seeing beauty, Being beauty, is as different as every person on this planet.
Behold that. And rejoice in it. For there is strength and power in all that beauty weaving its way through the universe in big and small ways.
“Each of us is responsible for how we see,” O’Donohue writes. “How we see determines what we see. The heart of vision is shaped by the state of the soul. When the soul is alive to beauty, we begin to see life in a fresh and vital way. If our style of looking becomes beautiful, then beauty will become visible and shine forth for us. When we beautify our gaze, the grace of hidden beauty becomes our joy and our sanctuary.”
May you find joy and sanctuary in moments of beauty today, and every day.