Let Beauty
What happens when you let beauty into the broken places, into the wounded places?
I used to try to make a case for beauty every time something horrendous happened in the world. But if I did that I’d have to do it 100 times a day, in these times. All I know is that I need beauty more than I ever did. Every time I write a blog post someone will message me and tell me how much they needed some beauty that day. When I stop getting these messages or comments, I guess I’ll rethink things.
We don’t have to feel guilty for interjecting beauty into this world. We need to spread more joy, inject timelines with photos of flowers and light striking objects in surprising ways. We need to be more alive, more awake to beauty. When we’re talking to a person going through a rough time, the last thing they need to hear is about the rough times you’ve been through. They need your joy, your inspiration, your hope.
I have found that when I ask myself, what can you give? rather than, why are people not giving me what I need? that I’m a much happier person. But I’m also the non-religious person who is addicted to the Prayer of St. Francis and who copies it out in a notebook on a regular basis, mainly because I fail at it constantly.
Lord make me an instrument of Thy peace,
Where there is hatred let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
And where there is sadness, joy.
O divine master grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive –
And it's in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
As Hafiz said, there is only one rule: “Have fun, my dear have fun.” And “Sing / Because this is a food / our starving world / needs.”
You will remember the famous lines by Leonard Cohen:
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
He talked about the song “Anthem” in an interview:
“The future is no excuse for an abdication of your own personal responsibilities towards yourself and your job and your love. “Ring the bells that still can ring”: they’re few and far between but you can find them.
This situation does not admit of a solution of perfection. This is not the place where you make things perfect, neither in your marriage, nor in your work, nor anything, nor your love of God, nor your love of family or country. The thing is imperfect.
And worse, there is a crack in everything that you can put together: Physical objects, mental objects, constructions of any kind. But that’s where the light gets in, and that’s where the resurrection is and that’s where the return, that’s where the repentance is. It is with the confrontation, with the brokenness of things.”
“The future is no excuse for an abdication of your own personal responsibilities towards yourself and your job and your love.”
The future is no excuse. The present is no excuse. You cannot abdicate from loving the world. You cannot abdicate from loving your neighbour. Please sing your songs and paint your pictures and write your poems. Share them all. Have fun. We need art more than ever.
In our beloved John O’Donohue’s book, Beauty, he reminds us:
“It was Blaise Pascal who said: In difficult times you should always carry something beautiful in your mind. Rilke said that during such times we should endeavour to stay close to one simple thing in nature.”
He also reminds us of what the 13th century mystic Meister Eckhart said, that “over against the world with all its turbulence, distraction and worry, one should cultivate a style of mind that can reach through to an inner stillness and calm. The world cannot ruffle the dignity of a soul that dwells in its own tranquillity. Gradually, this serenity will begin to preface our seeing and change the way we look at things.”
If you are fortunate enough to be one of those who has something beautiful to share and the strength to share it, if you are one who can ring the bells, if you can sow light and hope….do that. We can’t change the entire world, but if you can bring another dignity and serenity and even joy, even fun!, then you’ll have done something small and decent. And that, I think, does not suck.
