The Author of Beauty

Monday, July 24, 2017

From the Book of Wisdom, chapter 13

For all men who were ignorant of God were foolish by nature;

and they were unable from the good things that are seen

to know him who exists,

nor did they recognize the craftsman

while paying heed to his works;

but they supposed that either fire or wind or swift air,

or the circle of the stars,

or turbulent water,

or the luminaries of heaven were

the gods that rule the world.

If through the delight in the beauty

of these things men assumed them to be gods,

let them know how much better than these is the Lord,

for the author of beauty created them.

The “author of beauty:” Can you fathom it? Can you see Him? In every beautiful thing that comes into your eyes is a direct message to you of the love of Father and Son and Holy Spirit, of the divine creativity, of how He created so many things just for His own sheer delight (and that includes y-o-u as well.)

I like seeing pictures of the fish and other creatures who live at the depths of the ocean—such colors and shapes and entrancing beings whom we were never given to see before. Why did God make them to be so beautiful? Was it simply His own delight in creating? Did He make them for Himself alone—at least until some among us developed the skills and technology to take a peak at what He had made down there?

Or consider, if you will, the beauty of a single rose or lily and realize that your God was the author of such beauty as well. And remember that He loves everything that He has created, and even those things which do not look beautiful to us might possibly take on a beauty that is known only to Him, because for Him, even darkness is as light.

Pray God to keep your eyes opened that you might see His love, He Who is the author of beauty, the author of the beauty that is around you as well as the author of the beauty that is within you.

Give thanks to him, this day, even if it is grey and rainy and cold (like it is where I am writing these lines). And yet, when I leave my window opened, I hear the sound of the rain as it falls upon the earth and realize that even that sound is a special type of music (God as percussionist?) and it too speaks to me of His love and His joy in loving.

God bless you!