“The Beauty Of The Earth”

THURS., JUNE 8, 2000, 1:14 PM
OFFICE, PULLIAM

You, o son, have lived in a few different places, but these amount to only a tiny fraction of the possibilities on this planet. This small office is a “beauty spot” for you, even as it replaced that spacious office you had for many years. This place remains “unadorned” because of the cement walls, but it has enough of “you” to be a place of comfortable beauty. The music plays, a wondrous piece, and this is a big element in the beauty today.

Your desk could be neater, which means, mainly, throwing “stuff” away. Do it today… at least this week. Beauty is attained, but it then must be maintained. But, now, go across campus to another (perhaps cooler?) place to experience beauty in another way. Yes, you can wait till the music is pau. (1:23 / 1:45) Your desk is now more appropriate to an Emeritus Professor… clean except for a few “mementos”. Yes, there are now just a few “reminders” of your long career, and, rightfully, you have accepted this as an important element in the beauty of this time of life. You have no more need for the “active life” of which this (and the others) office was a symbolic feature. You are now into the beauty of non-involvement and gradual withdrawal. These pictures reflect other times of full involvement and the memories are fine… but this is now the time best for you. (1:53 / 2:04)

Fifth floor, Morris Library is another site of quiet summer beauty. There are few students here now, so the bustle of college life is almost gone. The trees and the lawns are green, and the little pond in front of this Library looks full and serene… if still a bit muddy. The Pulliam tower rises up above the trees… “your” building in these last years of your career. Otherwise almost nothing visible from here is above the heights of trees. It is a treat to live and work in such a place.

There has been no place that you’ve lived that hasn’t had some beauty, and this makes you quite a fortunate human. While there are many places of beauty humans have despoiled many such, in just going about modern life. Honolulu is a prime example, with its many buildings rising up… more each year… and cars, cars, cars. The desire to prosper is a strong one in your culture, and even this community is infected with this. Fortunately, for you, this area is not as “appealing” as Honolulu and hence is unlikely to have the population and the “progress” which you have recently experienced.

You and Lenore met and were married in Hawaii (and you went by the small house that was yours for two years… and it looked rather crummy). You grew up in a metropolitan part of California, in small houses, “cheek to jowel”. (The last one was bigger, but in a “neighborhood”.) Lenore grew up in “the country”, the beauty of which doesn’t appeal to you. After all of your (married) neighborhood living she wanted the country again, and you assented, though you had no real experience in such living.

So… 28 years on this Farm, and it is now your “standard of beauty”. Now it needs some “attention”. You accomplished a “neatening” of your desk here. What comes next? One more site… (2:31 / 3:34).

Turley Park, with green lawns and trees, flowers, and the shouts of children in the “active” portion of the Park. The breezes blow to balance the heat and humidity. The traffic on 13 is more than goes by your Farm (for this is the City of So. Illinois), but is certainly puny compared to Honolulu. You remember that there were parks like unto this one in Long Beach, as you were growing up, but you didn’t appreciate them as places of beauty. “For everything there is a season”, and now it is your season to appreciate places, in various forms of beauty.

You have just been to your Church building, and though the sanctuary is still a comfortably beautiful spot the building project detracts greatly from that impression. Will it ever be, in your experience, the place of beauty that the plans promise?