I heard some scientists on the radio this week discussing how even animals have an appreciation for beauty.
It got me thinking about the topic of beauty. It seems a marvelous thing, when you stop and think about it, that we have the sense of beauty in the first place.
What a gift! And what an over abundance of beauty there is in the world. It is everywhere. Have you noticed the beauty around you today?
Stop and look around. See it. Listen to it. Breathe it in.
Taste it. Feel it.
Some things are more obvious to us in their beauty: a sunrise or sunset with bright colors stretching across the horizon, stars dazzling in a dark sky as hints of a seemingly infinite vastness, majestic mountains and sparkling oceans, the endless color and design of flowers. Have you looked carefully at a human eye lately? They are amazing.
For some of us, a beautiful piece of music can overwhelm us with emotion. My wife is a mathematician who sees beauty in numbers. I can’t say that I fully get that.
We recently visited an artist’s display of color and patterns found in nature. It included butterflies, beetles, snakes, and many other collected specimens — even octopuses. It truly was amazing to walk through room after room filled with these examples or extraordinary beauty in things as ordinary as bugs that we seldom even notice.
To the eyes of faith these are all evidence of an amazing and artistic Creator who must have a voracious appetite for beauty.
There is also beauty in some seemingly unlikely places. It is tragic to see our elders fade in health and mental capacity. These situations are painful and difficult.
But there is also beauty to be seen in the love that is evident between long time marriage partners when they are confronted with physical decline.
The faithful care of one for the other is inspiring.
It is one of the great ironies of life that the beauty of love includes the pain of loss. But we can turn that around to a more positive note. Even in the pain of life, there is beauty to be found. The bond of love that causes grief in times of loss is also among the most beautiful things we can behold or experience, and it is made more visible in trials.
The most extreme example of this is Jesus Christ. The perfect expression of humanity — with all the goodness given by the Creator — is seen in Jesus. The glory and beauty of God was expressed through human flesh and blood. Jesus taught about and modeled the beautiful ways of God.
In Scripture we find a consistent narrative about God’s beautiful plan for creation.
Jesus came to redeem and restore that creation. One day, He will bring it to final completion in its full and wonderful expression.
When the perfect man was brutally murdered, it was unspeakably ugly. At the same time, as an expression of perfect love, showing us the depth of his love for us, even the death of Jesus can be spoken of as beauty of God-sized proportion.
If we choose to do so, we can listen to TV and radio stations and look at online material all day that directs our minds to the ugliness of human nature — attacking others with insults. Maybe today we would all do well to take a break from that and spend our time instead looking for and appreciating the beauty that is all around us.
When you see it, say a quick “thank you” to the One who makes all things beautiful in their time.
Jeff Fugitt is the pastor of Cassville United Methodist Church, located at 601 Gravel Street in Cassville. He may be reached at 417-847-2328 or cassvilleumcpastor@
gmail.com.
