The Navaho word hozho, translated into English as "beauty," also means harmony, wholeness, goodness. One story that suggests the dynamic way that beauty comes alive between us concerns a contemporary Navajo weaver. A man ordered a rug of an especially complex pattern on two separate occasions from the same weaver. Both rugs came out perfectly and the weaver remarked to her brother that there must have been something special about the owner. It was understood that the outcome of the rugs was dependent not on the weaver's skill and ability but upon the hozho in the owner's life. The hozho of his life evoked the beauty in the rugs. In the Navaho world view, beauty exists not simply in the object, or in the artist who made the object; it is expressed in relationships.
~ from NOTES ON THE NEED FOR BEAUTY, by J. Ruth Gendler
The icon bears witness to the nearness yet otherness of the Eternal. It introduces us to a world of mystery, yet at the same time, we discover that this mystery is not far away, but is hidden within each one of us, closer to us than our own heart.
Praying is not necessarily best described always as
looking towards God; sometimes and especially in
intercession, it is equally a learning to look at the
world as if with God's eyes.
