Making something beautiful, seeing or listening to something beautiful, and certainly the creation of something beautiful, are all acts of resistance against any system that is trying to keep us down, in any and all ways.
How do we know we are in the presence of beauty? One way is to look at the words sacred and mundane. Our daily, usual lives are mundane—the things we see and hear on a daily basis are typical. Useful. Expected. Mundane. But then something is put in our path on purpose or by accident and suddenly our soul stirs. That moment, that object, that piece of music becomes sacred. It took us from the mundane to the atypical. We round the curve on the same road we drive every day but there is a rainbow. We just need new socks but suddenly the shirt/dress/outfit with a pop of color and fabric that feels nice is in front of us and it takes our breath away. The CD begins to play and the orchestra lifts us out of our living room to a concert hall. Beauty is sacred—we transcend when in its presence.
Beauty is vital to a healthy life. It is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; O’Keefe painted bovine skeletons (or were they internal organs?) and Van Gogh painted wheat fields. We each have our own ideas of beauty, but we do have them. Some people see beauty in the destruction of things or in altered reality, like Picasso. Beauty speaks to us, calls us to rise above, leads us from mundane to sacred. It is in the SOUL of the beholder.
Friends, the political landscape, the nightly news, racism and supremacy, the war on women…they all want us to be miserable. We could be existing in an oppressive, dreary, hopeless world if we are not careful. Creating and appreciating beauty, being open to letting it surprise us as well as planning for it are all acts of resistance. Create and see beauty!
Resist!
In peace with love,
Rev. Amy