John and I arrived last night in our beloved Sedona, one of the most beautiful places in the world. Being here really is the result of "going confidently in the direction of a dream" I have had all my adult life of someday being able to live overlooking the sea and the mountains. I imagined that might be one and the same place, like the beautiful home of a friend I visited years ago in the Virgin Islands, which overlooked mountains and a beach. Instead, I was gifted by Amazing Grace with a home on the Inland sea we call Lake Michigan, and a home at the edge of the Red Rock mountains and wilderness of Sedona. There is a Native American chant I learned some time ago which goes like this: "I walk in Beauty; beauty is above me, beauty is below me, before me and behind me. Beauty surrounds me."
That is really the essence of my dream: to live and walk in beauty all the days of my life.
For to me, beauty is the Face of God. And it is present, not only in beautiful places, but everwhere, if we just have the eyes to see it, for as the poet said, "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder." There is such beauty in human faces, like the Native American grandmothers pictured above. There is beauty in the sound of the wind, and laughter, and singing.
What makes something beautiful to you or me is a mystery still unravelled by philosophers, but celebrated by poets. One of my favorites is Gerard Manley Hopkins. I love his line "Give beauty, beauty, beauty back to God, Beauty's Self and Beauty's Giver." Well said!
Do you walk in beauty? What beauty did you see today, or yesterday? And what will you do to be more aware of beauty tomorrow? What difference does beauty make in your life?
No comments:
Post a Comment