. . . as I move out into the world, I live out my uniqueness, but when I dare to look into my core, I come upon the one common center where all lives begin. In that center, we are one and the same. In this way, we live out the paradox of being both unique and the same. For mysteriously and powerfully, when I look deep enough into you, I find me, and when you dare to hear my fear in the recess of your heart, you recognize it as your secret that you thought no one else knew. And that unexpected wholeness that is more than each of us, but common to all—that moment of unity is the atom of God.
A favorite Lily Tomlin character is Trudy, the bag lady. Trudy suggests that we practice "awe-robics", by taking time each day to appreciate something such as the beauty of the stars. Trudy says we're closest to understanding when we are in awe of what we don't understand. May our hearts open to a love that is awesome.
There are paintings and sculptures that tug at the heart because they catch a simple moment and make beauty conscious. There is music that "brims the eyes with bliss". Such works of art are shock waves that travel between the ego and the Divine Guest, reminding us of a nobler purpose to life. They create moments in which we know that we can lead a symbolic life, when the Self, like Michelangelo's God, reaches out to touch the outstretched hand of our inner Adam and our ego.
~ from "Reflections on the Ego/Self Axis by Alice O. Howell
We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose bedecked with dew... Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful ... and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.
Music is like a human echo of the beauty of the world or nature or flowers somewhere out there sounding the beauty of a Creator... As I listen to this beauty, I can rest, let down the guard I consciously or unconsciously maintain against the next minor or major difficulty or crisis.
What do I have to give You, God? A flock of gulls flies overhead. They are so beautiful, their black wings against the morning's blue sky. Last night I watched the same sky, covered with stars. I feel the ocean water which laps at my toe. I walk among the rocks, picking up quartz and crystal. What do I have to give You?
I close my eyes and listen. You say to me, "Love the beauty of my creation." I wait. There must be more. But there is no more. And I am left hearing the words again. Love the beauty of my creation.
Appreciation of beauty is access to the soul. With beauty in our lives, we walk and carry ourselves more lightly and with a different look in our eyes. To look into the eyes of someone beholding beauty is to look through the windows of the soul. Anytime we catch a glimpse of soul, beauty is there; anytime we catch our breath and feel "How beautiful!" the soul is present.
Only in space are events and objects and people unique and significant -- and therefore beautiful. A tree has significance if one sees it against the empty face of the sky. A note in music gains significance from silence on either side. A candle flowers in the space of night.
I have been lost and drowned
In beauty's deeps
Forgetting,
Beauty is but the garment
Thou dost wear;
And when the eventide has come
Thou has departed,
Leaving Thy garment,
But I seek Thyself.
~ from FRAGMENTS OF EXPERIENCE by Viola Petitt Neal
Aesthetics is concerned with form, shape, composition, expression, and seeing forms AS THEY ARE. Just as the artist is "inspired" and filled with enthusiasm, so too those who SEE are seized with the divine spirit. What is seen is the doxa (glory) of the form, but this glory is the glory of being. Balthasar argues that the mystery in such beauty is the interruption of the eternal into the material in such a way that one can speak of the event of beauty, the entrance of the numinous into this world. To see beauty is to be overcome by the glory that breaks out of this person, this poem, this picture, this flower... We are confronted by the sense of its Otherness.
~ from THE THEOLOGICAL AESTHETICS OF HANS UR VON BALTHASAR by Louis Roberts
Looking for and enjoying beauty is a way to nourish the soul. The universe is in the habit of making beauty. There are flowers and songs, snowflakes and smiles, acts of great courage, laughter between friends, a job well done, the smell of fresh baked bread. Beauty is everywhere, ready to nourish the soul. It must only be seen to begin helping us.
How can I search for beauty and truth unless that beauty and truth are already known to me in the depth of my heart? It seems that all us human beings have deep inner memories of the paradise that we have lost. We were innocent before we started feeling guilty; we were in the light before we entered into the darkness; we were at home before we started to search for a home. Deep in the recesses of our minds and hearts there lies hidden the treasure we seek. We know its preciousness and we know that it holds the gift we most desire: a life stronger than death.
SUMMER BLESSINGS, dear friends! May we pause long enough each day to move from the sounds and birdsong into the depth soundings of our own soul songs and through to the sound of Silence.
Music is not merely a rhythmic arrangement of notes, but derives its life from the matrix of silence out of which it arises and into which it flows. And it is the silence between the notes that gives them meaning and grace.
Last night, after praying Compline in the darkness, the final verse of the last Psalm began to move around inside me, like the Spanish canto hondo -- deep song. I found myself cooperating with this music, leaning into it, knowing that when its last note vanished into the silence, another leaf would be living in the tree I call "myself".
Do not shun the darkness of the night. Learn to love it, learn to feel it. For in the darkness of night you will hear the silent music, music that runs through all eternity, and through us, as though we were not there. It is the harmony, the rhythm of all things. It is preludes, fandangos, great symphonies of joy, all things that are in harmony. One of the strongest of all is our heartbeat, which keeps us upon this earth, and the prayers throughout the world. So in your darkness, listen quietly, for it comes at such times: the silent music of the night ... the silent music of life.
How many songs I have I cannot tell you. I keep no count of such things. There are so many occasions in one's life when a joy or a sorrow is felt in such a way that the desire comes to sing; and so I only know that I have many songs. All my being is song, and I sing as I draw breath... It is just as necessary for me to sing as it is to breathe.
Music reproduces for us the intimate essence, the temp and energy, of our spiritual being; our tranquility and our restlessness, our animation and our discouragement, our vitality and our weakness -- all, in fact, of the fine shades of dynamic variation of our inner life.
My soul sings, Beloved, You are the melody.
You are the strings on which I play.
You are the One for whom I sing.
You are all that is and my soul seeks Oneness with You.
Teach me the music of life, Beloved.
Teach me to play the instrument of my Being,
and of this world, that I might see and hear
and know more clearly the nearness of your Presence.
I would sing into the Oneness that You are.
The entire world is a musical instrument, the pole of the world celestial is intersected where this heavenly chord is divided by the spiritual sun. Earthly music is an echo of this cosmic harmony: it is a relic of heaven.
