Article July 7, 1997 Issue

Beauty ... here and now, everywhere and forever

Mary Helen Tscherny

During an early morning walk the other day, I was enjoying the silhouetted shapes of trees against the rosy sky, thinking I had risen too late to see the sun come up. Then I turned a corner. There, across the green expanse of a schoolyard, rose the sun in all its glory, gilding the clouds and smiling gloriously on everything in view! I found a place to sit and bask in its light and in the gratitude I felt this unexpected gift.

Then came another dawn: the golden idea that beauty is never confined to a particular time and locality. Being a quality of God, it cannot be temporary or finite. That means it is in no way elusive, neither out of reach nor out of view. This realization freed me to walk on, knowing there would be beauty wherever I went, just waiting to be seen. And so it was; I encountered it in the happy face of a little dog, the friendliness of his owner, the wheeling of seagulls across the dewy grass, and even in the glossy feathers of the cawing crows.

The Bible assures us, "He [God] hath made every thing beautiful in his time" (Eccl. 3:11). God knows no past or future. God's eternity (and ours) is the ever-present now, and He doesn't leave anything out of His reflected beauty. So, everywhere we go, every moment of our lives, we can continually perceive images, actions, and thoughts that express the grace of our creator.

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