What does beauty mean?
Plenty of books have been written in an attempt to define beauty. While we truly believe that we’ll never fully grasp what beauty is, we can be constantly taking steps to better know and understand beauty every day. The point is that beauty surrounds us, in and through everything. It’s something that brings us to a place of awe and wonder and fills us with peace. There are times that we are blind to beauty because we’re too busy to look for it, we ignore beauty, choosing instead to see the ugliness or brokenness that’s sometimes before us, we ignore beauty out of fear, because an encounter with beauty changes us and we fear change. Encountering true beauty is encountering something that is bigger than us, something that we cannot fully grasp.
Beauty in nature
Encountering beauty can be in nature, such as a sunset ablaze with colors reflecting off a lake that’s as still as ice, serving as a mirror for the majestic canvas above. Another example could be sitting at the rim of the Grand Canyon, creating a feeling of being so small next to something so vastly incredible.
Beauty in art
For instance, take the statue of David in Florence, Italy. At first glance, this is an ordinary stone statue, but after learning more about the story of its creator and seeing the process of how it came to be, it will overwhelm you. the David being hidden inside a slab of marble before it was formed. It takes time, effort, and imagination to see the potential in a slab of marble or a blank sheet of paper or even, for that matter, a part of a city that looks like a dump instead of a flourishing community. Yet, the beauty is there, although it might take time, effort, and imagination to find.
Beauty in moral/ethical/creature
They are acts of beauty, care, and serving another, it is a beauty toward and between one another. Seeing people, I mean really seeing them, seeing their needs, their longings, the beauty of who they are, not on the outside, but on the inside. The acts of beauty stem from not what we create, but what we do, not for ourselves but for others. These do not need to be huge acts but can be so simple. It is the small words of encouragement, of welcome, that often go unnoticed or not seen as important, that can really make someone’s day who might have felt unwelcome/overseen by everyone else that they had been in contact with that day.
Beauty in brokenness
Something else that needs to be addressed is beauty in brokenness. When talking about our worries and disappointments, it should be mentioned that they are valuable experiences that we go through and learn from, and become stronger and more confident in ourselves. We change for the better. Life gives us scars too, but when there is healing, there is beauty. Our scars become part of our story. They mold and shape us and can push us to something better.
Awareness of beauty
We all long for that beauty, to encounter something that leaves us in awe. We want to see things not just as they are but as they could be! This beauty crosses languages, time, and cultures. When we begin to understand beauty, our shalom is deepened. Out of that peace, a cycle forms where we desire to seek and experience the beauty all throughout our life in our cities, our culture, and all of creation.
