Look For Beauty

SUN., APR. 1, 1990, 9:10 AM
SHERATON, NEW ORLEANS

The day began with an experience beautiful. The pictures of nature in its many forms combined with the words and music of familiar hymns gave this day a fine commencement. There is one more session for you to attend, and you anticipate some enlightenment and some reinforcement coming from that. Then the trip home… and back to the normal good, busy life.

Those who took the pictures you saw obviously look for beauty as they travel. The camera makes it possible to retain the image of that beauty and to share it with others. A note of appreciation to Rusty to share with his colleagues and friends is necessary. There is obvious beauty in those people… spiritual beauty.

The walk over and back was an experience of less beauty. In the downtown area of a city you must look hard for beauty. Much of the “modern world” does not have the obvious beauty of mountains, flowers, seascapes, and wild animals, great and small. Yet remember, as the beginning words of the “wonder” presentation affirmed, this is My world, and I find it good and beautiful. You must look for beauty in what humans create, and you must look beyond the ugliness and commonness. Look for the beauty which is inherent in much that you see.

You see, in the “eye” of your mind and spirit, some paving stones in the street, more beautiful than the blacktop that is more common. As you return in a short time give more attention to these stones, for they are beauty in an urban setting. Notice the trees that have little chance to grow as they might but still send forth new leaves and are spots of beauty if you do look up.

Yes, look up. The sky can be beautiful in so many ways. Do not limit yourself to one measure of beauty. The pictures gave you glimpses of obviously beauty in the blueness of mountain skies. Appreciate these, but also look for beauty above the towering buildings… in clouds, fog, even smog. You see, I can transform what would ordinarily be seen as common or ugly because I am the Creator and Sustainer. As you love Me, love My world, My earth. See how I can transform even what humans seem to create.

You have experienced the beauty of human/spiritual interacting in these days of convention. Focus not on your shortcomings or those of others. Appreciate the beauty in friends and colleagues and lo, they shall more easily see beauty in you. Cherish the role you are privileged to play in this part of your career. Be sometimes cautious and other times reckless. But always be aware. Appreciate. Look for beauty. It is all around you, and you are in the midst of it.

Look at your class groups as pools of beauty. Be a bit more ready to challenge those who seem to denigrate teaching, with implications that students in schools and universities are not “the real world.” This is your real world, and it is full of beauty. See it in the faces of those who sit before or around you. It is there, and as you truly appreciate this, some of them shall more easily see beauty in and through you. And this is one of the most important aspects of learning – seeing beauty, in one of its myriad forms.

There is beauty in these familiar pages. You now can easily recognize a Teaching, and each is a source of beauty, because each is a communication from Me, the Holy Spirit. You are privileged to hear and to put down what you hear… and each page is beautiful, in its own way.

See, in the “eye” of your spirit, the worship service now going on in your home church. See also Central Union, with its unique beauty. See Old South Church… and the barren, ugly room where you experienced that memorable Lord’s Supper. See the dining room at Synod School, turned into a worshiping hall… and the beauty of music you help to create and offer. There are places of worship that are obviously beautiful, yet every place where you turn to Me becomes a place of beauty.