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"I walk with beauty before me
I walk with beauty behind me
I walk with beauty above me
I walk with beauty below me
I walk with beauty all around me
Your world is so beautiful, Oh God.
As is often the case I woke up on Monday morning feeling tired. It had been a busy week away at the annual meetings and of course the Easter weekend. I could see a busy week ahead. On top of that I was wondering what to explore this week. I was wandering around the gardens at the chapel with Molly. The sun had just come up and Molly was sniffing around before “Going to the toilet”. As I was standing around wondering how long she would sniff before she went, I looked up and noticed that the cherry blossom trees were in full bloom. They were a beautiful rich deep pink. As always they made me smile, they are so beautiful. Their beauty in many ways comes from how short lived their blooming is. In fact, the cherry blossom is probably at it’s most beautiful a week or so later as it has half fallen. When the chapel gardens will be filled with pink snow and half are still on the trees. Their beauty is in both their impermanence and imperfection. They are at their most beautiful when their season is half complete, or at least in the eye of this beholder. I wondered if it will last until the next full moon on 5th May. As I enjoyed the cherry blossom in full bloom I remembered something I once heard about beauty and imperfection. A friend said that they loved looking at the full moon on a clear night. Although they preferred a not quite perfectly clear night as the moon seemed to look even more beautiful when framed by a couple of clouds. I smiled as I remembered this and looked up at the cherry blossom and thought I will enjoy your impermanent and imperfect beauty while it lasts, I will let it fill my imperfect heart and will hopefully share it. I then went back into the house, Molly had finished enjoying the beauty of her nose. I replied to a few emails and then went out for a long walk and got on with my day. That day I walked in beauty. I noticed the beauty all around me. In the spring flowers, the daffodils and tulips, the cherry blossom, the dogs of the town and the people I met and talked with. I had some beautiful conversations last Monday. I walked and I talked in beauty.
It is important to recognise the beauty in the world, particularly in difficult times. There are many troubles that surround us, that weigh heavy on our hearts, but this is not all that is life. There is some much that is beautiful in this world, in this life, in each other and it is important to notice it and to share what you see. This is why I love poetry these days. I love the way that quality poets see what is beautiful, capture it with words and share in such a beautiful way that it awakens something in our hearts. I love the way William Stafford depicts that the world is more that the troubles we see, in the following poem; that there is a very real world of nature that stretches from the cells of all our bodies to all forms of life that surrounds us; that we are part of this incredible thing that is life.
“Time for Serenity, Anyone?” by William Stafford
I like to live in the sound of water,
in the feel of mountain air. A sharp
reminder hits me: this world still is alive;
it stretches out there shivering toward its own
creation, and I’m part of it. Even my breathing
enters into the elaborate give-and-take,
this bowing to sun and moon, day or night,
winter, summer, storm, still—this tranquil
chaos that seems to be going somewhere.
This wilderness with a great peacefulness in it.
This motionless turmoil, this everything dance.
As I continued to walk in beauty I kept taking in the natural world around. I was not ignoring the troubles that were also in my heart, or my work commitments, I was just remembering that “this world is still alive” and it was alive in me and I need to feel this aliveness, in order to live fully in this world. It is one way that I connect to the beautiful power that I call God, it is not the only way, but is one way. As I looked at the blooming flowers and the cherry blossom I was reminded of its impermanence, that it does not last for ever, but is part of the ever changing cycle of life and existence. Yes, this world can be difficult and painful at times, but that even these troubles do not last forever. I live in, by and through hope. I walk in hope as well as beauty. I know that the better world I dream of is possible, if I didn’t I wouldn’t be a minister of this faith. I may not always see the fruits, but I do from time to time. As I walked in beauty and hope I saw beauty and new life all around me. If lifted my heart and inspired my soul.
This seems to be the key of course, how beauty inspires us. What that is, is different for everyone. To walk in beauty is to be touched by beauty. To quote Matthew Fox: "I believe that beauty is better understood as an adjective than as a noun. Rather than pursuing the question, What is beauty? I believe it is more useful to ask the question, "What are beautiful experiences you have had? And how can we forge more beauty from our common sharing of this planet?”
To walk in beauty is to be touched and affected by it. Having been touched we touch in beauty in return and therefore contribute to the ongoing beautifying of the world. As we do hope lives and cynicism dies; as we do we walk in beauty.
Beauty of course is not perfect. Like the falling cherry blossom or the slightly covered full moon, on an almost clear sky. Perfection is not beautiful, despite our attempt to make it so. Beauty is the “dappled things.” Something Gerald Manley Hopkins captured so beautifully. Hopkins wrote in such beautiful language. Like the most beautiful writers he was even bold enough to create his own language at times. As Parker J Palmer has said “Some of his poems celebrate and give thanks for the beauty of the world — and they open my eyes to it, even when I do not understand his every word!”
I am not sure that beauty is meant to be understood, more enjoyed. In so doing you get to experience more deeply and then somehow begin to understand through experience.
Parker continues, when reflecting on the following poem by Hopkins “Pied Beauty”
“At a time when some are so threatened by diversity that they become fearful, hateful, and violent, what could be more important than giving thanks for “dappled things” — human as well as natural — and for the harmony and joy we feel when we learn to do the “dance of differences”?”
“Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Well, I offer praise by walking in beauty and beauty walks in me.
Beauty is in imperfection. For the Japanese who worship the Cherry Blossom’s imperfect beauty, imperfection is often seen as the highest form of beauty. This is beautifully illustrated in the following story shared by psychoanalyst Kawai Hayao in “Dreams, Myths and Fairy Tales in Japan”
"There is a famous story about a Zen master who shows what beauty is for him. A young monk is sweeping a garden. He tries to do his best at the job. He cleans the garden perfectly so that no dust is left in it. Contrary to his expectation the old master is not happy about his work. The young monk thinks for a while and shakes a tree so that several dead leaves fall down here and there in the garden. The master smiles when he sees this.”
This is a beautiful example of the concept of “Wabi-Sabi” The simplest definition of wabi sabi is that it is a kind of beauty whose highest form is expressed through imperfection. This is why the cherry blossom is so loved. As it is at it most beautiful when it is just past its peak, when the petals begin to drip-drop onto the ground.
Beauty is imperfect and it is impermanent. You can not hold it, but you can walk in it. You can live by it, but you do need to recognise it, inhale it, embody it and share it. This is why I love Mary Oliver so much, even though she is sadly no longer with us. This does not mean we cannot share her beauty. I do constantly. I am going to end this address with a little bit of Mary, for if anyone walked in beauty, in a very real sense, it was she. She reminds me that if I look and listen all the time for whatever is beautiful in life, it will fill me with delight and it will instruct me in joy and acclamation, it will help me grow wise, and it will inspire me to walk in beauty.
Anyone can walk around pointing out what is wrong and ugly in the world; anyone can walk around pointing what is life denying. That is easy, it takes no effort. That said to become keenly and consistently aware of what is good, true and beautiful demands effort, consistent effort, it takes work. To do so we must open our hearts, our senses and our souls and we must keep them open. Sometimes all you have to do is look up at the blossom above you, or the little dog below you who is more interested is sniffing at things than going to the toilet. It worked for me early Monday morning, it inspired me to walk in beauty, to absorb it, to let it fill my soul and to share what it did to me.
When you recognise the beauty in life, you will recognise it in yourself and the people in this world. Yes there is much wrong in this world, but there is much that is right. If you recognise this you will walk in beauty.
I am going to end this morning with some Mary Oliver. Here is “Mindful”
“Mindful” by Mary Oliver
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for --
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world --
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant --
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these --
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"
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