Article July 20, 2009 Issue

A spiritual eye for beauty

BY FENELLA BENNETTS

Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color. It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.—Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 247

"Beauty is a way of seeing differently," explains Fiyero in the Broadway musical Wicked. He's fallen in love with the girl with green skin. Not with her glamorous blonde friend—who is in love with him. But even this heady love-triangle can't break the girls' devotion to each other. Their final duet declares they've been "changed for good," by seeing that even each other's differences are beautiful.

Think of it! What a joyous and freeing message, in an age tending to define beauty in narrow, physical ways. It celebrates the saying, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." At the same time, this message is provocative, encouraging a fresh look at how we see, judge, and experience things—and people.

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About the author

Fenella Bennetts is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher in Esher, Surrey, England. She has contributed as well to the 2008 Christian Science Hymnal Supplement.

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