Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 1-133

TRUE BEAUTY

From 'Sunrise Sunset' (HarperCollins/Harper San Francisco), Rowland Croucher's book of daily meditations. Feel free to use or adapt it.

Do not adorn yourselves outwardly... rather, let your adornment be the inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. 1 Peter 3:4.

D.H.Lawrence said the human soul is more in need of beauty than bread.

But what is beauty? For John Keats 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever.' But a visit to an art gallery will evidence many approaches to aesthetic beauty. Some of the ways marginalized young people decorate themselves are abhorrent to those whom they might describe as 'straight'. If an executive put a ring through his nose (or cheek or even his ear-lobes) he would probably wonder why he was not promoted...

'What does he/she see in her/him?' The man is 'plain-looking', the girl is 'homely'. Beauty is supposed to be in the eye of the beholder. For Picasso 'beauty [was a] word without sense because I do not know where its meaning comes from nor where it leads to.'

Beauty is relative. Some African cultures would use the word 'beautiful' to describe a woman Hollywood would laugh at. Parents of so-called 'deformed' or 'mentally handicapped' children say they're beautiful, but others can't see it (and may even be repulsed by those same children). Everyone is beautiful, in their own way...

Jesus, you believe I am beautiful. Convince me to agree with you! Amen.