◊   ◊   ◊   ◊  ◊   ◊   ◊   ◊   ◊   ◊

“There’s Beauty in the silver singing river…

There’s Beauty in the sunrise in the sky.”

Bob Dylan’s words conjure pictures that lead to an understanding of what is beautiful for anyone who has seen a silver river or a rosy sunrise.  How often do we use the word, “beautiful,” to describe something?  As I look out my window this morning and see the wind-blown rain power-washing the world, I have no desire to venture out for my usual walk; but my first thought is, “how beautiful!”

There’s beauty in the way the freshly-washed street glistens and in the way the ripples fan out from each point where a raindrop impacts the puddle in the gutter.  The grass is three shades greener than it was yesterday, and the vibrant beauty of its new color catches my eye and pleases my mind.  There’s beauty in the way the graceful hanging branches of the pine trees wave and sway in the wind, and I think of how we have translated that movement into dance and the rhythm of our imitation into music as we speak and sway.  There’s beauty in the realization that the sun of one day combines with the rain of another day to send both moisture and warmth into the earth and cause life to burst forth from the dormant seeds of winter.

We can describe beauty in many ways.  It’s said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; and there are things that move one person to say, “beautiful,” that another might consider ordinary.  The poet, John Keats, tells us, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”  As I try to make sense of a way to define Beauty, I think his words lead me closer to an answer.  Beauty and truth.  It would make sense that they are connected; because when we put aside our five senses and instead use the part of us that feels passion when it approaches a point of expressing the essence of who we are created to be — our soul? — we feel the way that Truth just stands on its own merit and shines light in the midst of darkness and confusion.

The German author, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe expressed it this way:

“Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.”

Perhaps Beauty is the essence of who we are — and what the world is — created to be.  It is the soul placed in the universe by the power that created it.  As we strive to find that Truth that lies at the core of our very existence, we have no choice but to respond by recognizing the beauty in nature, or the beauty in a work of art, or the beauty in words that stir that part of us and remind us of the beauty that dwells within us.  When we reach that place of recognition, we then reflect an outward expression of the primeval beauty that simply and truthfully exists, beyond the sight of our eyes and visible only to our soul.

When you see something beautiful today, remember to look beyond as well and see the true beauty that lies in the soul of the person who reflects this true and created essence for you to enjoy.  What kind of beauty will you reflect to the world today?