Welcome to Beauty and the Beholder

One morning after breakfast last week, I stood in my kitchen in my thickest, furriest robe and slippers and still felt a chill. At 20 degrees, it was unseasonably cold for our area (that is to say, it actually felt like winter). Knowing I had a full day ahead at my computer, I stopped first to look at the view from the picture window. Several small birds, a flaming red cardinal, and a squatty squirrel gathered food from under the trees and shrubs. They didn’t seem cold at all—just perky. And pecky.

The grass in our front yard, lush and green a few months ago, now looks tan, sometimes even gray. Dull. A light overnight frost had turned it prickly, and something glinted in the sun. What was that? I pressed my nose to the glass like a little kid and squinted like a 40-something: there were several small and shiny blue things lying in the grass. The frost crystals were capturing the early morning sun like prisms, and the result was tiny circles of blue light, probably 15 or 20 of them. They looked like diamonds shining on that blanket of dormant grass. Gorgeous. With the sun’s movement and climbing temperatures, surely this scene wouldn’t be there long. And if I hadn’t stopped to look out the window, I would have missed it.

I think God gives us diamonds all the time but we miss them. We’re distracted by our own busyness. We don’t expect to see (and therefore don't look for) diamonds in the mundane. But they are there; beauty is there. We just have to open our eyes, our ears and our minds to receive and enjoy it.

That’s what this blog is about: the beauty around us. My posts--on Wednesdays and occasionally Fridays--will be about beauty in creation, in the arts, wherever we find it, including those moments in our lives that make us stop and gasp, that make us feel more alive and grateful for the experience.

Like I did last week.