Yesterday I made a quick stop at the store just as dusk was quietly seeping across the western sky. It had been a beautiful, clear winter day. The store is at the top of a hill and the parking lot affords a wonderful view of the sunset which I have admired on more than one pre-supper run. Yesterday as I got out of my car, I could see the sky was putting on a spectacular evening performance. Last night's show had a special guest star-sky rockets. Earlier in the day, jets from the airbase had been out crisscrossing the sky and now the long spider silk of their fuel plumes had swollen and drifted into thick streaks across the sunset. The markings only accentuated the dome of the sky, drawing my eyes up higher to consider once again how vast and limitless it truly is. As my gaze dropped down I took in the silhouetted lines of the 150 year old church steeple across the street and then the electrical lines, the other stores, the busy intersection, the cars and parking lot to finally, the scurry of others flowing in and out of the grocery with supper on their minds.
Decades ago, I remember driving up the interstate at just such a time of day and being astonished at the incredible colors of the sunset. Every sunset is beautiful, but there are times because of location, or the humidity or whatever all the explainable reasons are, the colors are spectacular. This was such an evening. I began to slow down so I could look. About the same time I noticed the cars around me were slowing down also. At first I thought there must have been a wreck up ahead. Then I saw folks pulling off the expressway and getting out of their cars--but not because there was an accident. They were pointing and getting out cameras and talking to each with wonder and excitement in their faces. They were all looking at the sky.
There are all sorts of metaphors at hand here. I could so easily go on about the symbolism of the view of the grocery store sky being obscured by man made things, including a church steeple. But for me, that wasn't what touched me about this experience. What moved me was what I see as the greater gift. The power of beauty. I believe there is something in all of us that is hungry for beauty and nourishing this hunger is absolutely essential to our humanity. Heeding the moments to pause and take it in, large or small somehow cultivates the goodness in us. Admiring beauty around us brings the possibility of noticing the beauty within ourselves and that I believe eventually leads to considering the possibility of there being beauty in everyone. Rilke has those powerful, powerful lines that go: "Perhaps everything terrible is, in it's deepest being, something that needs our love." I don't think he's talking hearts and flowers here. I think he's talking fierce, 'big enough to face the truth' kind of love about our lives, our relationships,our government, our world.
I learned a good while back, that the three legs of the triangle represent truth, love and beauty because like the triangle, they all need to exist for the shape to be whole. Right now much about our daily lives is weighted down by the not so beautiful events of the larger world. Does it not seem heartening to think there could be a powerful link between truth and beauty and love? Any close examination of oppressive cultures reveals how quickly they intercede to control those three concepts. There is a reason. Does it not make all our efforts to create beauty in our lives and relationships and work seem to be something holy? Perhaps it is good to remember the part of us that can resonate to a beautiful sky is the very same part of us that seeks the truth and opens us to love? I have a dear artist friend who refers to herself as an "Evangelist for Beauty". Maybe when we are most weary and are feeling the most powerless, that is the time to be the most dedicated to our ability to find or create and affirm beauty, truth and love in our daily lives . Could doing so be the individual act of courage required to make us whole again? I am reminded now of one of my favorite quotes from R.S. Thomas: "Life is not hurrying on to a receding future nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush. To a brightness that seems as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you." I wonder what might happen if besides all the many things we consider ourselves to be, one of our job descriptions was 'Evangelist for Beauty"?
Did people pause for the grocery store sky? Some folks did. This time, though, I had a camera.
"But beauty is not madness--it is the challenge to be sane, to be thoughtful, to be wholesome."
Mary Oliver, Blue Pastures
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