Beauty Contest
Sheesh, I am sorry, I still haven't gotten time to download the photos. And I am off on a new adventure until after the weekend, and will have NO INTERNET ACCESS til then. I am already getting tremors and palpitations. But, I will use this fast to my best advantage and try to come back refreshed and ready to take on more regular blogging. That is, if anyone still comes here after this utter lack of attention.
To keep you enticed and coming back, if you would leave your moments of beauty NOT passed up in the com box, even more than once day, and more than one day (since I'll be gone a few days), I will choose a winner and award a prize.
The prize will either be a print of one of my icons, or a CD mix, custom made for the winner. I will choose by next Wednesday, so enter often and overwhelm me with beauty.
Until I return, Blessings to you all!
(photo credit to my brother, which he titled "Midwest Mountains". In my photo file, I named it "beautiful", thus the choice for this post)
posted by Renee at Tuesday, April 15, 2008
10 Comments:
Great article, but so true...
Today I rushed home from work so I could run 2 1/2 miles at a local community park that has a dirt trail, there is beauty all around. Did I have time to notice the ducks in the resevoir, or the fisherman casting their lines or what about the yellow mustard flowers along the trail glowing on a beautiful sunny day? Nope, instead I had my iPod shuffle blaring running music and my only concern was what I was going to make for dinner.
Since coming out of treatment last summer for addictions I find beauty every single day. Finding beauty is about being aware. Sometimes I feel foolish for finding beauty in simple things. That tears can spring to the surface because I've noticed the way the sun is shining through the trees or the curiousity of a little bird looking for food. The way my little pug cocks her head at something new or simply because I've told her she's a sweetie. The other day in the grocery store a child was being joyful and fully childish and I couldn't help smile as she passed me by. I do go about my day with that awareness and it brings with a sense of gratitude for the very simple things in life. I always stop and look at the night sky when the stars are bright on a clear night. I always stand there and say 'wow' several times. I've done that since I was a child.
Beauty is everywhere, we just have to open our eyes. Or maybe it's our hearts.
Right now beauty is the little sparrows' nest on the wreath of our front door and the fact that my family is taking the side entry door instead, so as not to disturb the 'facts of life' going on on the wreath.
Beauty is also being able to have a bowl movement after having been so constipated post-surgically for three days. Don't 'cha know.
bowel, that is
The bulbs I planted a week before the baby was born are up. The daffodils are in bloom. The purple and yellow tulips are open, and I am eagerly waiting to see what color the next group of tulip buds will be. The cherry or crabapple tree in the back is lazily drifting blossoms to the ground. The azalea bush in the front is showing off her purple color. I'm surrounded by the splendor of God.
I was thinking about this post a few nights ago when my almost 2 y.o. decided to get up for the day at 5:30. It was still dark, and I tried to get him to go back to sleep by standing up and rocking him back and forth. Instead of grumbling about how early it was or fixating on just trying to get him back to sleep so that I could get back to sleep, I was hit by an appreciation of the fact that, although he is a big boy for his age, he's still little enough for me to snuggle and walk around with. He had his head against me, and it was a warm and peaceful moment that was beautiful, at least to me.
Another beautiful moment happened the other day, when Mark and I shared a long look that was silent, yet full of meaning. The kids got up from their naps at the same time, and he and I were sitting at opposite ends of the couch facing each other. We each had a child's head on our chest, as they were slowly getting equilibrated. I think most days, Mark and I would be absorbed in the child in our lap or trying to pay attention to a movie/show we had on. But, that day, we shared a look of contentment and appreciation for our family and each other that also struck me as really beautiful.
In terms of physical beauty, I have been noticing my lovely roses, and the fact that all 5 of my rose bushes are flowering this year! Each one has a different color -- pink, pink & white, magenta, red, and white. Every time I'm out in the backyard, I have to walk over and look at them with a smile. Even in the middle of swing-pushing! :)
My moment of beauty? Not a physical one, though the irises are out and my new mulch in the garden smells so good when I open my front door....
No, my moment of beauty came late last week when a friend of mine did something beautiful. Clementine is a woman with a gift for friendship. We have been friends since 1994, when we met each other out walking. Fourteen years later, here we still are.
But what she did she didn't do for me. She is the kind of friend that when she takes you in, she takes in everyone else in your family, too. So there I was last Friday, visiting with my housebound mother as I do every morning, and in walks Clementine "just for a visit and a cup of coffee" carrying a plate of cinnamon scones.
That someone else cares about my mom--in her loneliness and isolation? THAT is beauty. And Clementine has it down to the ground. She made my sweet mother's day. And she did it without even thinking about it.
Raising a large family and homeschooling, I realized that I can't get out and enjoy the beauty in nature much anymore. But I've been reflecting on this topic and it suddenly struck me. I find beauty in things inside such as a newly swept kitchen floor, a pile of folded laundry that my kids have washed, dried, folded and are putting away. A freshly dusted and vacuumed house. My 3yo, 2yo and 1yo playing and laughing together. A sweet sleeping 2mo old. My school age childen doing school work. My DH playing and being goofy with all ten kids. To me that is overwhelming beauty that can bring me to tears with gratitude. Graditude that I have been blessed with so beauty in my life, undeserving as I am.
Well, I'm passed the deadline, I know, but here goes anyway.
I was sitting on the couch the other day, likely reading blogs or some such thing, when I looked up at a picture in my living room. It's a nice little shot my wife took of me playing bass guitar with my sixteen month old son Ambrose next to me, "helping" me play.
We just had our second child, Peter, about a month ago, and it struck me, looking at Ambrose in that picture, that the look on his face was a signature "Ambrose" look and it was significantly different from Peter's looks.
It seems like I had spent a good chunk of his life thinking of him as "my kid". That's how "my kid" looks, or acts, or talks, or what have you.
But it struck me in that moment that that's how Ambrose looks, how Ambrose acts, how Ambrose talks, and how no one else in the world will ever look, act, or talk quite like him. He is a completely irrepeatable human being, with all the dignity and mystery of the Image of God which is stamped on his being.
Ambrose became to me, in that moment, something wholly unique and special in the very moment I was realizing that he is not "my kid", but his very own little person. I suspect that realization of his autonomy will grow in bitter-sweet ways over the next 17 years or so before he strikes out to really be his own man. But every time I look at that picture now, I get a little shiver when I realize the wonder of the uniqueness every one of us carries as children of God.
Ack! I posted a comment here when you first blogged this and only now, going to reread it, realised that it must not have gone through! Darn it.
That's ok though because I have a better beautiful moment than I had before. Yesterday night was a looooong night. My baby has a touch of reflux and it felt like I spent the whole night either nursing or burping him. Finally around I dozedly realized he wasn't fussing anymore. I had put him tummy to tummy on top of me to try to burp, and had apparently fell asleep that way. There was a now-cold line of spit up down my side. As I shifted Pascal over into the crook of my arm and reached for a spit cloth to wipe myself up with, I heard the most beautiful delightful sound. For the first time of, I hope, many, my baby chuckled out loud. Not once, but 3, 4 times. The sound was so clear and beautiful that a smile sprang instantly to my face.
I forgot my exhaustion, forgot the sour milk drying on my side, forgot the demands of the fast approaching day, and spent the next half hour cooing and smiling with my three month old son, until we both fell back asleep.
Kate
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