Look for Beauty

 

 

Beauty shows up in odd places.  

Like splashes of color on gray pavement, a stunning smile coaxed from the shy heart.  Beauty, though exploited by advertisers, is often found fresh and free - crescent moons etched on glass, musical laughter, photos of mountain and sunset on bookmarks, loving emails tucked in folds of computers, paint stroked on canvas, seeds showered on the ground.

 

When sorrow overwhelms, I look for beauty. 

 

With all that is broken in this world, with all the violence that is real and then sensationalized, pain is easy to find. Sorrow and violence fills the screens of our eyes and ears, even resides in the shadows
of our unconscious. 

Compassion and goodness exist there too. Beauty can be found within and without; what fills us depends on what we look for, what qualities grow in us depend on that which we seek, 
tend
             and feed.
   

Last weekend, as the nation mourned lives lost in Boston, I wandered down a tree-lined lane, looking for beauty, needing beauty.  My eyes were drawn to hundreds of tiny lacy bouquets of lime and yellow on the path ahead.  Casually scattered, gathered with a dot of red, vivid bundles of seed and flower lay in sharp contrast to their bleak backdrop of macadam. How simple; how exquisite!

 

 

 

               As I continued walking, I came upon a statue. One arm severed, bleeding. The other reaching out to comfort a child.  

                                          

People break and bleed. The earth breaks and bleeds.  Even most religions speak of a God who breaks and bleeds. When anguished, I find hope and courage knowing violence is not the end of the story. God reminds me visually: joy and beauty are present even in the midst of suffering.  Perhaps my meloncholy eyes are first caught by the bleeding, but the image that endures is the tender hand caressing the child. Wether you are one who looks at tragedy or one who must look away, in the end
it is love that unites us. 
Might does little, but Love heals and strengthens.   

 

 

 

 

The earth sings with beauty.....

 

                                                 always!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even as she bleeds, weeps.

 

 

 

If you and I cultivate the ability to see with the eyes of our souls, then we will become exactly what we want to the world to be.  We will be

                             the artist,

                                    the lover,

                                           the see-er,

                                                 the gentling,

                                this broken world craves. 

 

 

 

Seek truth and goodness. And when you find beauty on this 

                sweet earth ......                   

 

...share it, and add more!
 

 

 

Joyfully,

Sharon