Moving from Blandness to Beauty (Better Than Normal 5)

I’m going to largely jump off of what MaryAnn specifically wrote in this chapter to what spoke to me about this transformational shift on Wednesday morning. That is not to say that what she writes in this chapter of Better Than Normal¹ is unimportant - not at all - it is a wonderfully brilliant and prophetic chapter that she writes. But sometimes with any piece of art (writing, painting, photography, music, etc), a prompt or an idea is a jumping off point and that’s somewhat of what happened here.

As we walked, I was thinking about what beauty means to me and how seeking after and sharing beauty has become a core practice in my day to day life. But as I reflected yesterday morning, what stood out to me is that what makes something beautiful is how it connects. Beauty connects me with God. Beauty connects me to nature. Beauty connects me to others. Beauty connects me to memories. It isn’t just beauty for beauty’s sake. Beauty connects.

This past Sunday morning, I had, of course, been out with Scout early before our Palm Sunday service. But a little bit later, I received a message from one of our folks in the church with a photo of the sunrise from his home (which is about 20ish minutes from the church). Here’s what he sent.

Beautiful, eh? It was beautiful not only in what is in the photo but in that he made the choice to share that beauty with another person. In this case...me.

Well, when I downloaded my photos later in the day from the morning, here’s one of them.

Maybe they weren’t quite at the same time but they were pretty close. So I shared it with him as well. Again, beauty shared and beauty connecting.

I thought it was so wonderful that the two of us were looking at the same sunrise from two rather different locations (about 30 miles apart). Again, beauty connects.

So with all of that...maybe there is a deeper connection to what MaryAnn wrote as she included this shift in her section on communal values - that this isn’t simply an individual thing but something we do with others. Beauty is something that draws us closer and moves us out of blandness and the usual into something beyond ourselves.

To what does beauty connect you? And are there some examples of how you perceive beauty that you can share in the comments?

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Here are a few others from Wednesday morning as I was pondering all this…Including Scout amongst the periwinkle...

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

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1. Just a reminder… the book comes out in a few weeks and you can preorder it lots of places or get it for 40% off a pre-order direct from the publisher at this link with the code NORMAL40