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 neighbors, 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.
