A Reminder of Beauty


“BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD”
— FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

 Yesterday, being Saturday, meant I had my To-Do List. Saturday's, for me, are the day to tie together loose ends. I typically to keep Sunday as a day of Rest and generally abide by this. Watching March Madness just seemed like a waste of time. Kids putting a ball through a rim. I used to be so utterly consumed by basketball that I have pretty much come full circle and deflated my affection for roundball. Although, the Sixers are starting to reignite my interest in a small little fire. I don't have much investment in the college game and am not terribly infatuated in the Sixers but will watch them when they play on national TV.    

 I was knocking out one To-Do after another until I came to a task that has been delayed longer than I wished: Writing about Portland, Oregon, for Extracted Magazine--a digital publication about Specialty Coffee. I was out in Portland over Christmas Vacation this last season. To remind myself of the places and spaces and people, I was scrolling through the pictures on my iPhone. If you are anything like me, photos on the phone have different life spans. Some perish quickly. I take the pic, post it on social media, and then delete. Other pictures hang on for awhile then get deleted. Then, some are keepers. They are in long-term storage. This above is one such picture.

 Out in Portland, I decided to pretty much stay on Pennsylvania time. I'd wake up at 3:30 to 4:00 AM, read for awhile, then hit the streets and catch the coffee shops before they became too crowded. I was typically out on the streets by 6:00 AM and most of the stores would still be closed. As I made my way to somewhere, I happened to see this neon sign in a store. It really struck me...there is so much beauty, it could make you cry. Maybe the proprietor was talking specifically about the wares in the store but I took it more as a macro-statement. A manifesto even, an admonition to not take the beauty of existence for granted. 
"For although beauty soaks through and becomes part of ourselves, it must not end there. The mark of true beauty is that it leads us out of ourselves. When we experience beauty, we become transfixed in a spirit of awe and wonder, which leads us to blossom outward in thanksgiving and praise. If we live our lives in this spirit, then we begin to take on a beauteous luster too. In this case, living a beautiful life means living a rightly-ordered, self-giving life like Christ or one of His saints. It is not the hedonistic life of superficial beauty which someone like the character Dorian Gray might pursue.
Ultimately, beauty leads us to the One who is beauty, “beauty ever ancient, ever new,” according to St. Augustine. We can’t expect to convert every person we meet with our stories of beauty or our attempts to live beautifully. But, thanks to the mysterious workings of God’s grace, we can help prepare their hearts to be open to Him and to deeper encounters with His beauty, truth, and goodness. We do this by offering others, whenever possible and prudent, little glimpses of the little glimpses He gives us of His glory and His loveliness." 

 From Faith and Culture 

          

      

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