Picnicked with my wife and kids this evening in our backyard. It was perfect. My 3 year old daughter and 1 year old son shared their popsicles and giggled endlessly. The clouds drifted by and the sun set overhead. For us, it was truly a moment suspended in beauty.
I live less than an hour from Skyline Drive, in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains. During the pandemic, I've been driving there at least every other week. No matter what the season or the weather, it is an incredibly beautiful place. My spiritual director has helped me to think of these trips as time spent in prayer. I'm beginning to believe that he's right!
My niece and nephew running to greet me while saying my name in long stretched syllables is beautiful to me. If that's reflective of the divine, I can be ok with that divinity.
Re-imaging or re-discovering beauty beyond the 'youth-obsessed culture' we exist in is a beauty that we all need to soak in from time to time. Thanks for the reminder!
Your essay on beauty resonates so deeply with me. "I saw beauty as a cosmetic substitute for belovedness." Thank you for so beautifully articulating the soul-sick longing of my teens through late twenties.
Your Notes on Beauty read like poetry. Words are beautiful. I am also reading your book and what a profound impact it is having on me. As the mother of a gay son, this is a book that I wish all of my church friends would read. I had to officially resign from the Evangelical Covenant Church because of their recent Resolutions and actions concerning gay pastors. However, I still attend my local church body every week because of their Unconditional Love of me and my son and their zeal to “Love Mercy and Do Justice” in our local Community.
I LOVE your thoughts on beauty. As a 40-something mom, I feel surrounded by messages and friends encouraging me to invest in outer beauty. People in my sphere seem fixated on anti-aging and expensive skin treatments and weekly nail appointments, etc. I find it hard to achieve any balance; I care how I look, but don't want to make my outer appearance my focus. I will be chewing on your words for quite some time. Thank you!
Thank you Jeff for your words, for sharing your perspective and thoughts with us. While plenty bright, I’m hardly a very deep thinker. Your words help me spend some time in that space that doesn’t require an immediate decision or a spreadsheet.
My partner surprised me with Farmgirl Flowers peonies - white and magenta. I've enjoyed them slowly bloom, flourish, and then wilt and drop their petals with explosive dramatic flair.
Thank you for taking the time to write - I look forward to it every week.
This is our first spring in this house so I'm planting azaleas, hostas, a butterfly bush, bee balm and so much more. I've hung bird houses and feeders. So I am finding and cultivating beauty all around the outside of my home.
"Things are not beautiful because we say they are. We sense beauty in our world because those things are beautiful already, and they are beautiful because they participate in God. God is 'the ground both of their existence and their beauty' (Jonathan Edwards). God is the source of the beauty we experience, and the beauty in our world is an experience of God. So despite the popularity of the cliché, it turns out that beauty is NOT in the eyes of the beholder! At least, not if the beholder is mortal. Beauty resides in the heart of God..."
I see the beauty of God in nature every day - this morning, beautiful "God light", which is what my family calls the light that pierces through the clouds, peeking over the mountains behind my house; and always the pink and purple trees make me think of God's delight being expressed in flowering trees that don't have to exist but they seem a mark of his joy that they do.
The beauty I'm making is about the last few months of planning for my sister's 40th birthday which is tomorrow and will include 40 unique and thoughtful and silly gifts, a box of love which includes birthday greetings of love for my sister from over 25 friends and family members and a VidHug which is a video montage of more friends and family expressing their love and celebration of her. My heart is so full of love for my sister and joy at how much she will be blessed and hopefully how deeply she will see how many people love her. I just can't wait! :)
Jeff, your writings, your thoughts, are always life giving to my spirit. I resonate with this offering, as I am currently diving into Makoto's book, Art and Faith. The beauty of this spring also brings an ache for eternity, and an awareness of beloved-ness. Page 130 and 131 of his book speak to me here...as he unpacks the prayer of a friend, "Lord, use this food to prepare us for our deaths." The beauty of the ordinary, may I have eyes to see.
Picnicked with my wife and kids this evening in our backyard. It was perfect. My 3 year old daughter and 1 year old son shared their popsicles and giggled endlessly. The clouds drifted by and the sun set overhead. For us, it was truly a moment suspended in beauty.
I live less than an hour from Skyline Drive, in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains. During the pandemic, I've been driving there at least every other week. No matter what the season or the weather, it is an incredibly beautiful place. My spiritual director has helped me to think of these trips as time spent in prayer. I'm beginning to believe that he's right!
'Basil from guest room'😄
I smell the beauty of my lilac bush in full bloom. I see beauty in the tears we shed for the pain we witness.
I try to create beauty with the daily act of a family meal with my husband and teens.
Appreciate your words Jeff.
Thank you Jeff. I so love your Notes. I’m going to paint today because if these words. Thank you.
My niece and nephew running to greet me while saying my name in long stretched syllables is beautiful to me. If that's reflective of the divine, I can be ok with that divinity.
Re-imaging or re-discovering beauty beyond the 'youth-obsessed culture' we exist in is a beauty that we all need to soak in from time to time. Thanks for the reminder!
Your essay on beauty resonates so deeply with me. "I saw beauty as a cosmetic substitute for belovedness." Thank you for so beautifully articulating the soul-sick longing of my teens through late twenties.
Your Notes on Beauty read like poetry. Words are beautiful. I am also reading your book and what a profound impact it is having on me. As the mother of a gay son, this is a book that I wish all of my church friends would read. I had to officially resign from the Evangelical Covenant Church because of their recent Resolutions and actions concerning gay pastors. However, I still attend my local church body every week because of their Unconditional Love of me and my son and their zeal to “Love Mercy and Do Justice” in our local Community.
I LOVE your thoughts on beauty. As a 40-something mom, I feel surrounded by messages and friends encouraging me to invest in outer beauty. People in my sphere seem fixated on anti-aging and expensive skin treatments and weekly nail appointments, etc. I find it hard to achieve any balance; I care how I look, but don't want to make my outer appearance my focus. I will be chewing on your words for quite some time. Thank you!
Thank you Jeff for your words, for sharing your perspective and thoughts with us. While plenty bright, I’m hardly a very deep thinker. Your words help me spend some time in that space that doesn’t require an immediate decision or a spreadsheet.
Yes . And thank you . Soaking in these words and images.
My partner surprised me with Farmgirl Flowers peonies - white and magenta. I've enjoyed them slowly bloom, flourish, and then wilt and drop their petals with explosive dramatic flair.
Thank you for taking the time to write - I look forward to it every week.
This is our first spring in this house so I'm planting azaleas, hostas, a butterfly bush, bee balm and so much more. I've hung bird houses and feeders. So I am finding and cultivating beauty all around the outside of my home.
From a blog post I recently read about beauty:
"Things are not beautiful because we say they are. We sense beauty in our world because those things are beautiful already, and they are beautiful because they participate in God. God is 'the ground both of their existence and their beauty' (Jonathan Edwards). God is the source of the beauty we experience, and the beauty in our world is an experience of God. So despite the popularity of the cliché, it turns out that beauty is NOT in the eyes of the beholder! At least, not if the beholder is mortal. Beauty resides in the heart of God..."
https://jamescalvindavis.com/2021/03/06/not-in-the-eyes-of-the-beholder/
I see the beauty of God in nature every day - this morning, beautiful "God light", which is what my family calls the light that pierces through the clouds, peeking over the mountains behind my house; and always the pink and purple trees make me think of God's delight being expressed in flowering trees that don't have to exist but they seem a mark of his joy that they do.
The beauty I'm making is about the last few months of planning for my sister's 40th birthday which is tomorrow and will include 40 unique and thoughtful and silly gifts, a box of love which includes birthday greetings of love for my sister from over 25 friends and family members and a VidHug which is a video montage of more friends and family expressing their love and celebration of her. My heart is so full of love for my sister and joy at how much she will be blessed and hopefully how deeply she will see how many people love her. I just can't wait! :)
Jeff, your writings, your thoughts, are always life giving to my spirit. I resonate with this offering, as I am currently diving into Makoto's book, Art and Faith. The beauty of this spring also brings an ache for eternity, and an awareness of beloved-ness. Page 130 and 131 of his book speak to me here...as he unpacks the prayer of a friend, "Lord, use this food to prepare us for our deaths." The beauty of the ordinary, may I have eyes to see.