Many years ago our “General Assembly” had to create an Object that
described who we are. I’m told that this was to fulfil a commitment to the Charity
Commission to gain charitable status as a religious organisation. One line read
“The worship of god and the celebration of life”. I have often thought about these
words and today I kind of see them in reverse. For me what we ought to be
aiming for is the worship of life and the celebration of God. That life is what
we ought to hold in highest value, highest worth and that this is celebrated
through that love which animates all life, that love that I know as God. That
though is just me I am sure that many folk would disagree.
I have been feeling reverence for life powerfully this week as I have noticed the beautiful pink cherry blossom beautifying the trees. This will not last, it is so short lived, but I will enjoy it while it does.
Cherry Blossom is
much loved throughout the world. In Japan though it is revered, worshipped. Each
year the Japanese people come in large groups with their families and friends
to view the flowers and to enjoy festivals with food, drink, and music. The
significance of the cherry blossom tree in Japanese culture goes back hundreds
of years. It represents the fragility and the beauty of life. It is a reminder
that life can at times become overwhelmingly beautiful, while at the same time
tragically short. The cherry blossom, blooming for a short time each year, is
an overpowering visual reminder of the precious fragility of life. So, when
Japanese people come together to view the cherry blossom trees and marvel at
their beauty, they aren't just thinking about the flowers themselves, but also
about the larger meaning and deep cultural tradition of the cherry blossom
tree. This is a truly religious experience. It is more than just spirituality,
as they are bound up together sharing the experience.
Life has taught me that how I see the world really depends on where I am
at spirituality. I wonder if I have ever seen the world as it really is. Do any
of us? How I see the world seems to be constantly changing. I believe it really
matters how we see the world, because how we see the world will affect how we
live in the world.
As Victoria Safford wrote
“To see, simply to
look and to see, is an ethical act and intentional choice; to see, with open
eyes is a spiritual practice and thus a risk, for it can open you to ways of
knowing the world and loving it that will lead to inevitable consequences. The awakened eye is a conscious eye, a
willful eye, and brave, because to see things as they are, each in its own
truth, will make you very vulnerable.”
The beauty all around awakens something in me; it awakens my eyes. It also awakens something else; it awakens my heart and soul and compels me to act more beautifully in the world. Surely the purpose of the religious, the spiritual life is to be awake, awake to the world.
“Let beauty awake, for beauty’s sake”
When the Buddha started to wander around India shortly after his enlightenment, he encountered several men who recognized him to be a very extraordinary being. They asked him: "Are you a god?" "No," he replied. "Are you a reincarnation of god?" "No," he replied."Are you a wizard, then?" "No." "Well, are you a man?" "No." "So what are you?" They asked, being very perplexed. Buddha simply replied: "I am awake." Buddha means “the awakened one.” How to awaken is all he taught.
Beauty awakens something. That said what is beautiful to me may not be the same for you. The things I find most beautiful, apart from the obvious, are of course the beautiful blossom on the trees, but I am just as enchanted by the wild geese flying high, or the song of the blackbird, or the incredible football that Marcelo Bielsa is creating at Leeds United, or the music of New Model Army, or the batting of Joe Root, or watching our little dog Charlie playing at home or out the park with other dogs, just delighting in life. Charlie is only a little Shi Tzu, but she holds her own with the big dogs, she has such a beautiful spirit about her. She pours out her love and she receives it in equal measure too. I also caught sight of my first ducklings of the year the other day, when out walking Charlie by the canal.
What is beautiful to you, what does it awaken in you? Beauty is subjective. As they say “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
It is a curious phrase “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. It suggests that beauty is subjective. The phrase is of disputed origin. Some say it was coined in ancient Greece. While others site Shakespeare, “In Love’s Labour Lost he wrote:
“Good Lord Boyet, my beauty though mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:
Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,
Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongue.”
Benjamin Franklin, in “Poor Richard’s Almanack” wrote “Beauty, like supreme dominion is but supported by opinion” David Hulme wrote “Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.” The exact phrase though is attributed to Margaret Wolfe Hungerford who in “Molly Bawn” (1878) wrote “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”
Beauty is subjective.
it is in the eye of the beholder. It is about what our eyes can, but it is also
about how we see, with my little eye.
I spy with my
little eye, something beginning with…Choose your own letter…
I’d like to share a
little Mary Oliver with you. Here is “Mindful”
“Mindful” by
Mary Oliver
Everyday
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?
“Mindful” by Mary
Oliver from Why I Wake Early. © Beacon Press, 2005.
It is easy to look at the world and see what is
destructive and life denying, what is ugly. It is less easy to become
consistently aware of what is good, true, and beautiful. This requires
discipline to open our eyes, minds, and hearts, and keep them open. It takes consistent
effort. Beauty appears as a grace, but it takes effort to be aware and thus be
affected and moved by beauty, that does not come unbidden. That said if we do
and if we keep on doing so, despite the very real troubles we are surrounded by.
we will begin to see beauty everywhere, not only in nature and one another. There’s
a lot of bad news out there, but there’s a lot of good news as well. Pass the
word and help keep hope alive. For it is not good enough to merely see beauty,
we must be moved by it and moved to action so as to continue to create things
of beauty ourselves, or even better become people of beauty, by living
beautiful lives.
Plato believed that Love was born of beauty and
that it tapped into our basic human drive and desire for Good, that it was not
a private or self-indulgent act of pleasure and that “the ability to love
beauty has created all the good things that exist for gods and men’.
This brings to mind a passage from Matthew’s Gospel (Ch 26 vv 6-13). It is a much debated primarily because it has been used by some as a justification for tolerating poverty. I believe that to focus on this is to fail to recognise the central message of Matthews Gospel, the abundant blessing of love.
The power in this story is in its recognition of abundant love. It describes a woman who loves and cares for Jesus. She anoints him with oil because she loves him dearly. It truly is an act of loving, nay gracious abandonment. She is overflowing with love and wants to anoint those she loves with this. This is beauty in action. This is a soul awakened by beauty and inspired to act lovingly. Her heart is over flowing with love and she wants to pour out this love onto Jesus who will soon no longer be with her or the disciples.
This is something we can all do we can all pour out this attentive love on one another and all life. We can offer care and attention to each and everyone around us. In so doing we will help create beauty all around us.
Dante claimed that
“Beauty awakens the soul to act”. Beauty awakens the soul of me in so many
indescribable ways and it compels me to act in such a way as to pour out that
beauty within onto the world in which I live and breath and share my life with,
in reverence for life.
Beauty not only awakens the soul, but also fills the heart to overflowing, it certainly compels me to pour my heart out on the world in loving ways. In fact perhaps true beauty, certainly in a human sense, is to act morally.
Beauty is all around us. We are surrounded by it. If we open ourselves to it, it will fill our hearts, awaken our souls and lead us to act lovingly and morally. This is beauty in action. If we create beauty with our own hands we will touch each individual soul we meet and they will grow and flower to their own full potential. We are here to enjoy the beauty that we are surrounded by and to pour out the beauty that lays within us and thus bring it to fruition in the world around us.
Let beauty awake for beauty's sake. Awake from
slumber and awake from dreams. Let beauty awake from deep within us, Let beauty
pour from us and may we lavish our world with it.
Here is a video devotion based on the "Blogspot" material
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