… watching for the brushstrokes of God
I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
…As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
from “This World” by Mary Oliver
I have been noticing lots of spiderwebs lately all over the place. Less distracted, less traffic, slower pace? Have you noticed? What do they say to you? What shimmers?
Augustin once described the lifesaving quality of beauty as “a plank amidst the waves of the sea”.
What does lifesaving beauty look like? What images come to your mind? How is beauty lifesaving?
Something as ordinary as a sun-umbrella, it’s beauty suddenly before my eyes brightens my view of my surroundings. It arrives unexpected, sacred and ordinary.
Where do you notice the beauty of God in both the vastness of the horizon and the ordinary particular?
Sun, sand, ocean, waves, and sky speaking of the One who was, and is, and forever will be…endless, constant and present.
Where do you encounter the spaciousness of the Creator?
Sometimes you need the ocean light
and colors you’ve never seen before
painted through an evening sky.
…so that you can fly and become free
by being still and by being still here.
David Whyte, Second Sight
Sometimes we travel and can’t find beauty. We are lost. It was only when my watercolor companions outlined three pictures within my one that the beauty emerged before my eyes.
How do our companions open our eyes?
With the Eyes of the Heart 