Jenny Sullivan

In these posts, I’ve talked a lot about looking for beauty in unexpected places around us. But I think there is another place I haven’t yet mentioned where we often overlook beauty.

When we see beauty, or the appearance of it, we tend to regard it in relation to our selves. We may recognize and appreciate beauty in others, but offer praise only through self-deprecation. We may view beauty as some sort of scale, on which other beautiful things only lower our own rank in the hierarchy. She’s pretty becomes she’s prettier than me. He’s good devolves into he’s better than me. Kind acts are elevated above our personal failures to meet the same standards. In short, there is the danger that everything beautiful will become defined by its superiority to our own inferiorities.

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I have an interesting exercise to propose.

It has to do with light. Anyone who has been reading these daily beauty posts probably won’t be surprised when I say that light is beautiful. There is so much I could say about the beauty of light. The way it shines and sparkles and dances across different surfaces. The way it spills through leafy branches and spreads across the hills. Light is indescribably beautiful in unending ways. And yet, my fear is that we take light for granted.

When we wake up each morning, we often feel exhaustion seeping through our bodies. We may feel a complete lack of motivation, an overwhelming desire to hide from the overwhelming nature of the world and the lists it has provided for us of many things to do. Do we notice the light that streams in through the blinds? Are we grateful for the dawn of a new day, another burst of glorious, joyous, hopeful light? Or do we close our eyes, stumble forwards and tell ourselves that this is a day we will simply have to “get through”?

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As we stride through our day, there are images and words that confront us, leaping to the forefront of our consciousness. There are things that seem to thrust themselves in our path, things that we cannot avoid or ignore. We listen, because they are there. Their contents may be good or bad, or perhaps neither of the two, but we access them because they are easy.

How often do we engage with things because they are easy to enjoy? Maybe I should clarify my meaning: I am speaking of things that lay their subject on the surface. Their meaning is thinly veiled and doesn’t require much (if any) reflection. Perhaps Facebook posts are a suitable example. Why is it that we have the time to scroll so frequently through these lists of statuses and pictures, but there are other words that we never “have the chance” to read?

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Even if we always acted lovingly towards others, some of their words and deeds would still frustrate us. Sometimes we may experience these negative feelings because the behaviour of people around us is less than admirable or does not comply with how we ourselves would have acted in a similar situation.

There are other times (many times, inevitably) when people let us down. This is something we all expect. We know that people are not perfect and that we have disappointed those closest to us as well. And yet, we are never prepared when our trust is betrayed, when our confidences are held carelessly and our divulged hopes and dreams are forgotten or overlooked. It is never easy to be let down. But perhaps it could come to matter less in determining our own actions and the person who we ourselves want to be.

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Many tasks require focus. And yet we do not always give them this. Our attention is often divided and split among different things. At other times… in rare, consuming moments, we become caught up in whatever we are currently doing; we get swept away in the task at hand. I enjoy that I can lose myself in the twisting tide of a good story. That when I am reading a book, I can devote myself entirely to its contents and feel the pain and passion expressed by the characters speaking through the pages.

And yet, there are many times when I am reading and my feet stay firmly planted on the ground, in the reality of my own world. I read the story, but I don’t feel the story. I enjoy the story, but there are other things, other words that clamour in my mind, pulling me out of the pages. I am doing this, but I know I will have to do that, and then that, and after that, something else.

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Something that I think about often is the importance of sincerity.

What does it  mean to be sincere? Personally, I would describe sincerity as a quality like to honesty and truthfulness. I would say that sincerity is unlike, or indeed the opposite of, falsity or fake-ness. But sincerity is about more than telling the truth instead of telling lies. Real sincerity involves a disposition: an openness and honesty of self, a willingness to present what is real without pretensions.

Perhaps we do mean what we say and we do try to be open and honest with others. But maybe, there are parts of our selves that we’d prefer to keep hidden. There are parts of our selves that we are ashamed to show to others, parts that compose the very core of who we are, and yet we’d rather those around us didn’t see them.

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Much of our time is filled with action. We rush, we flit from one thing to the next, engaging in endless activities. Our lives are consumed with doing. But perhaps they should leave a little more room for being. I think that at our centres we need to incorporate a spirit of rest. Without this rest- true rest- we will always be hurrying, running from one place to another, always in motion even when we are standing still.

If we have a foundation of rest, then “busy-ness” can only ripple our surface. Stress and outward circumstances may pose challenges, but they cannot take away our peace. They cannot disturb or distress the calm that is ours alone, the calm that transcends this world and reaches above all earthly motion.

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The world is not all beautiful.

Let me clarify my thoughts… there is beauty in the reality and the humanity of what is both broken and whole. And beauty formed unlike our expectations can often be easily missed. Beauty is present in our lives, even when we see only ugliness. There is always beauty, if only beneath the surface, behind the outer layers.

And yet some things do not seem beautiful. Some words, some actions, some choices are in fact very ugly. Never give these things more than they are worth. Do not dwell on the ugliness. Whether or not you engage with it, letting your thoughts sink down to this level suppresses beauty. With your thoughts, you have the power to choose beauty or ugliness.

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I’m not sure what to write about today.

But sometimes we are without words or ideas. Sometimes we are short on suggestions for where next to take our plans, plans once carefully made and carried. Sometimes there is beauty, but we don’t know how to use it. We see glimpses of His presence, and yet we feel without certainty.

I think there is beauty in uncertainty. There are times when the words that spill onto the page are words that we did not expect, words that we never thought we would or could write, thoughts and feelings that spring from a well we feared had run dry. Life appears to us in snatches, and the next step is often shaded. Where are we going? Will we know once we get there? What we will do when we find it?

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