I heard Dr. Curt Thompson recently say, if we sit in the midst of beauty long enough, beauty will not only find our joy, it will also discover our wounds.
That caught me off guard. Why would beauty go looking for my wounds? Why would beauty risk turning beauty into anything but beautiful? I still don't know, really. But after reflecting on Thompson's words, I began to feel the truth of them. I have written often about the peace I find in the woods. About the joy I experience during a mountain hike. Or simply sitting looking out over a valley. Peace. But the truth is, it's in those peaceful moments when I find myself reflecting on life many layers below where I would typically reflect on it. I often try to force peace into my life by avoiding the things I don't want to think about. Things that disturb me. Beauty, in all of its unforced peace, though, has deep interest in discovering those very things. Maybe because beauty knows something about us that we don't yet know: it's our whole selves that make us beautiful, not pieces and parts of us. Beauty doesn't search our hearts and minds and souls for pieces and parts to judge, it searches them in order to fully know us. Maybe that's why we hide from beauty at times. Not just the beauty of the woods or the mountain, but also the beauty that can be found in relationships. The beauty that can be found in quiet moments of prayer or meditation. The beauty that can be found in a quiet drive along a forgotten country road. The noise of the world protects us. Busy distracts us. But beauty, beauty stops us in our tracks. And in the stop, beauty goes to exploring. Exploring us. Isn't it ironic, we go into the woods exploring beauty, and its beauty that ends up exploring us? The trick is to get good at our often unknowing avoidance of beauty. The trick is to get good at knowing beauty doesn't see as ugly the parts of us that we see as ugly. The trick is to get good at knowing that in the midst of beauty, we add to beauty - we don't take away from it. The trick is to find more beauty in our lives, and embrace the beauty that beauty finds in us. I encourage us all. Find more beauty in the world, and let the beauty of the world find more beauty in you.
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Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
February 2025
CategoriesAll Faith Fatherhood Life Mental Health Perserverance Running |