The pursuit of Beauty…

I like buying a secondhand book that is marked by the reactions of past owners. Underlinings and highlightings, the odd squiggle or exclamation in the margin –-these all intrigue me and send my imagination running down unexplored paths.

In the same way, I enjoy people who have lived enough to have lines, wrinkles and scars. Everybody has a story worth listening to, even those who think of their lives as humdrum, and discovering the life process of others is an endless delight to me. Human experience is the best teacher I know, and the more closely I listen, the more I understand how we are both unique and – oh so sadly – very much the same 😊!

And I love the company of those who live outside of fashion and trend, people who understand that a pure spirit is the great beauty we need in an increasingly ugly world. These people fit this definition I came across: Beauty – the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit. Where the outward is dictated by fickle culture, a rich inner life, the gracious kind that God delights in, is universally recognized.

So, today, I encourage myself with these words I first heard many years ago: “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”Philipians4:8-9 NLT

In a world seeminglyintent on ‘uglification’, may we reflect His beauty in some way, to some person,today. “Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, All His wondrouscompassion and purity. Oh, Thou Spirit Divine, all my nature refine, Till thebeauty of Jesus be seen in me.”

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