Noticing Beauty

 It was the first Thursday of the month this week which means that participating museums, galleries, studios, and venues open their doors to the public for free. One of the places on the list is the Conservatory at Volunteer Park.
 
I had planned to meet my team at SPU there for our weekly meeting, but we had to cancel because one of them was sick. I decided to bike up there during my lunch break instead, and little did I know I would walk into a thin place… the beauty of the plants and flowers in the greenhouses tapped me on the shoulder, and before I knew it, I felt that familiar lump in my throat and was practically moved to tears. As Ted Loder said in one of his prayers that has resonated with me so much lately, “everything is suddenly transparent… and something in me is pure enough for an instant to see your kingdom in a glance, and so to praise you in a gasp —quick, then gone, but it is enough.”  It's hard to put words to moments like these.... Kate Bowler gives us her take on times when we are given the gift of noticing beauty like this. 

It’s not every day that you see it,
but sometimes beauty sneaks up on you
with a tenderness, a sweetness, so lovely
it hurts. 
It sings to the heart
and makes it glad
that ever a baby laughed
or a parent smiled
at the hilarious solemnity of play.
Beauty brings a kind of grief.
Because its perfection rings so true
It calls out everything else
that has ever fallen short.
In me. In us. In everything. 
But that’s the thing
It’s just the way of it:
That beauty will always be
crushingly lovely.
We are grass. We are fireflies.
We are the day that the Lord has made.
-Kate Bowler, Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day