Monday, February 27, 2012

Defining beauty



It is difficult to define beauty . . .

When a person declares what is beautiful for him or her, they reveal whom they love and how they love, and what they love to do.

Beauty reveals itself over time in relationship. The people you love are beautiful to you. Their beauty comes from their liveliness and authentic sweetness, their intention to live lives that make some sense the spirited coherence of being who they are.

When we are most alive, we are beautiful. When we are in love, we are reminded that we are beautiful. In addition, sometimes when we know we are beautiful, we find ourselves in love. "In love" usually means the romantic sense of being with one other person who in that moment we feel reflects us perfectly. In love, living in the field of love.

"Love is blind," we say, but perhaps it is more accurate to say love sees with different eyes. Love sees beyond the surface. Love opens the door for beauty. When we see with the eye, we develop the ability to refine, to judge, to discriminate. When we see with the heart, we expand the view of what it is to be human, see the common dream, see the wisdom of friends and neighbours, and see there is no separation between that which is most beautiful and the everyday world. The eye of the heart sees with a wholeness that allows imperfections and idiosyncrasies to coexist with beauty. The eye of the heart knows surface and depth are not opposites.

Beauty is a process, a revelation, not a finished state.