Beauty

Two Italian PhD students are visiting and working in our lab for a month, so on Friday they introduced themselves to the lab. What I found most interesting - what seemed to me to be the most different thing between what they said about the opportunity to be here and what the average full-time student says about the opportunity to be here - was that they both said this was a beautiful place. They implied that our lab was beautiful, that our building was beautiful, that even this whole unwieldy desert campus was beautiful. In contrast, most of the students I know on campus comment frequently about how drab and ugly our campus and most of the buildings on it are, and how they wish they could be studying in some more picturesque place. I have often done so myself, to be honest with you! (This is probably why I noticed their use of the word "beautiful" - because it is not at all how I normally think of ASU).

It convicted me.

How often, when I walk about campus, do I actually see all the beauty surrounding me? How often do I notice the broad expanse of blue sky streaked with the glory of the clouds in the sunlight, or the intricate delicacy of the yellow flowers burdening the palo verdes, or the smooth and elegant contours of the trunk and branches of those same trees? How often do I see and appreciate the rich texture of the bark of the mesquite tree, or the deep shiny green of the leaves of the orange trees, or the soft interplay of sun and shadow on the grass (or even the pavement)? And how often do I give thanks to God for creating all this beauty and letting me live in such a marvelous place? Not often enough, I think.

Instead of assuming that things are drab or dreary, dull or ugly, I think we should see it as a challenge (and maybe even an exercise in Christian faith and joy) to look for the beauty that is hidden everywhere in plain sight. It might lift up our eyes and our hearts to heaven, in gratitude and joy, and give us a bit of freedom from the burdens of weariness and sorrow we carry here on earth.