My Beholding Eye

Bettyann and I enjoy watching with amazement, amusement, awe and sometimes aggrivation the America's Got Talent television series each year.  This season, thus far, the talent has been excellent.  From the very beginning, we both agree, that it should be most difficult in finalizing a winner. So many, over the top, talented individuals. Among those I think amazing is one particular fella who, when asked by Simon, his occupation, said: "a subway singer." Somewhere from my mind's filing cabinet I remembered reading about this type of subway occupation.  Thank goodness, there still are a few files in that cabinet! Although I couldn't put my minds finger on the exact detail, I did some google research, which authenticated my memory files, stored a few years back.  It was the story of a Dale Henderson who gave cello concerts in New York City subway stations because he feared the day when classical music will be no more. He played for free, (which I don't know if he still does) focusing primarily on Bach Solo Cello Suites because their "power and beauty unfailingly inspire great appreciation, joy and deep emotion in those who hear them." At least that's the way the writer but it in the Wall Street Journal article back in 2010. It went on to say that some commuters would stop and stare, curious or captivated, many having never heard a cello or Bach concerto before. For Henderson, the music was an offering of something meaningful, seeds for future generations of classical music admirers who would not otherwise know it, beauty well worth lugging his heavy cello down into the subways to protect.

It has not always been easy for me to talk about beauty, sometimes, because of a minefield of objections from others who just can't seem to sense the same experience. I think that, maybe, it's placed in the "eye of the beholder" by God's grace, which gives it a tenuous feel at best; while Henderson describes a world without classical music as soulless; is it that others may not miss it so much or at all? And yet I've experienced in these later years it's not hard for me, at all, to talk and reminisce about beauty in a world that makes its distinctive encounters increasingly stand out. An author by the name of Arthur Krystal, in his book: "Hello, Beautiful: What We Talk About When We Talk About Beauty tries to describe the common affect of our varied encounters of the beautiful this way: "Beauty seems suited to those experiences that stop us in our tracks. Whether it's a painting called Broadway Boogie-Woogie or a scherzo by Paganini, the beautiful is conducive to stillness. It doesn't excite us, or necessarily instill in us the desire to replicate it; it simply makes us exist as though we're existing for that very experience."

I thought it was Solomon of the Old Testament who said that beauty is to the soul what food is to the body. It wasn't him because I can't find it, on the other hand, (speaking of my mind's filing cabinet) there is a folder somewhere by someone.  Let it go Bill; it's not that big a deal.  Really unimportant. What is most important: like what Bettyann's Onion Pie is to my body, beauty makes me always hunger for more. That's why I deadhead my Dalais or cut full bloom arrangements for the house or friends. Cutting those full blossoms only facilitate the production of more and more blooms.  Beauty seems to leave me with the ache of longing for another taste, another glimpse. What's surprising, when I think about it; this longing often comes at  unique or unsuspecting times. I was listening to the CD, L'Escolania de Montserrat canta a la Mare de Deu,  Michelle brought me from Spain, while driving down the gravel road. Suddenly I was overwhelmed for a fleeting moment with the thought that this life is so wonderful! I'd like to live to 105, at least! I've had similar encounters in the midst of nature, like a spectacular sight of the Grand Tetons or the cloud smoke in the hallows all around Quiet Rest or a tiny humming bird hovering over the hanging Bridal Vale basket-or the watching of a Cherokee Indian Eagle dance and taking in the colors, drums and leaps of the eagle dancer or participating in a Balsam Range concert. I identify with the psalmist saying that the whole world declares the glory of God. So for me as a believer in Christ, though I may find myself consumed by beauty, I shouldn't be surprising that I experience tastes of this glory in a great variety of scenes and settings. I can also see in a wider sense of blind indifference how the presence and purpose of beauty might be far more difficult to explain.

Now, I'm not saying that beauty is always a simple thing, something pretty and pleasant and easily explained. Beauty, at times has been quite haunting. Like awhile back, watching those sharks hunt sea lion, on National Geographic. Those times of interplay between the presence of beauty and its absence only seems to contribute its power to stop and still me.  I've noticed beauty's severe absence can stir a similar ache within me. And often does. A longing that is inexplicable if beauty is merely accidental. I've found that my faith's worldview offers a God Who not only has created the beautiful, Whose glory offers glimpses, but also the God Who can take away my brokenness, Who takes all the glimpses and miraculously introduces the whole.

I remember times as a professional chaplain I ministered to a dying child and their family. I remember grandparents saying, "it's just not right, grandchildren are not supposed to die before their grandparents." They had noticed something very simple, but quite profound I thought to myself. To this day I still think how incredibly insightful their words were, even coming in tremendous sorrow and grief. They seemed to be saying instinctively that this wasn't right, that grandchildren are meant to live, that the rotten parts of life are not okay, that wholeness is a grandparent's profound and stubborn longing.

Sometimes it's the absence of wholeness, the absence of beauty that reminds me that I am meant for more. Remarkably, in these grandparent's comments is something that every prophet in the Bible has said—the ones who were trying desperately to open the people's eyes to the glory of God around them and the ones who were pointing out the absence of glory.

Father, God, beauty only has an effect on me because it is in some respect like You, a manifestation of Your beauty or goodness or wisdom. Thank You for Your Spirit once again to opening my eyes as to the world around me and respond appropriately, whether a fleeting glimpse in nature or a quiet act of kindness, whether something that stirs me or a brokenness that stops me. Allow Your grace to create each glimpse to create a hunger for the Whole. Help me to instinctively cry out: "This is not the way it's supposed to be!" I was made for more! I've been made for wholeness. I know this because there is One who is whole.  Amen