spring

I have been lost and drowned
In beauty's deeps
Forgetting,
Beauty is but the garment
Thou dost wear;
And when the eventide has come
Thou has departed,
Leaving Thy garment,
But I seek Thyself.

Beauty and love are as body and soul.
Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond.

Aesthetics is concerned with form, shape, composition, expression, and seeing forms AS THEY ARE. Just as the artist is "inspired" and filled with enthusiasm, so too those who SEE are seized with the divine spirit. What is seen is the doxa (glory) of the form, but this glory is the glory of being. Balthasar argues that the mystery in such beauty is the interruption of the eternal into the material in such a way that one can speak of the event of beauty, the entrance of the numinous into this world. To see beauty is to be overcome by the glory that breaks out of this person, this poem, this picture, this flower... We are confronted by the sense of its Otherness.

Looking for and enjoying beauty is a way to nourish the soul. The universe is in the habit of making beauty. There are flowers and songs, snowflakes and smiles, acts of great courage, laughter between friends, a job well done, the smell of fresh baked bread. Beauty is everywhere, ready to nourish the soul. It must only be seen to begin helping us.

In beauty, the soul recognizes its higher self and seeks to become one with it.

What is essential is to keep the heart always open to beauty.

How can I search for beauty and truth unless that beauty and truth are already known to me in the depth of my heart? It seems that all us human beings have deep inner memories of the paradise that we have lost. We were innocent before we started feeling guilty; we were in the light before we entered into the darkness; we were at home before we started to search for a home. Deep in the recesses of our minds and hearts there lies hidden the treasure we seek. We know its preciousness and we know that it holds the gift we most desire: a life stronger than death.

Insomuch as love grows in you, so in you beauty grows.

Music. Silence.
Two to offer to God
A magical mystery in my life.

We are here because the Big Love recognizes our value and knows what we can become, what we can give, what we can do that will bring new life, new vision, new spirit, new love to the world. This is the primal call: to treasure and value and love one another and all the other creatures and things of the earth. It is the call to acknowledge and to act from that knowledge that each person is just as valued and just as loved as the next, and all are invited to participate in the communion of that love.