Small, Beautiful Things
One of the benefits of being in the same place for awhile is getting to know the details of it—how the landscapes change almost as fast as a flip of the calendar; how the view changes; how the birds and the flowers work together to clothe the fields. The yellow finches are back at the feeder and they take flight all together like a basket of tennis balls thrown in the air. The fields, if they’re un-grazed by cows, are polka dotted with little yellow buttercups and white daisies. Beautiful weeds, and liberal. Everything is so verdantly alive right now, in the middle of a pandemic.
When we hike on the weekends, Tim tromps through fallen trees and tangles of branches without missing a beat. He’s spent half his life in the woods and is agile and goat-like (there’s a better word, I’m sure). It seems like I’ve spent half my life in the kitchen. I take off my glasses before we enter the woods, the ground adjusting before my eyes, and I have to pay close attention to every footstep and handhold and change in terrain. My hands reach out for something rooted to take hold of. He always looks up ahead, marking an invisible trail and making blazes and noting the general direction we’re heading. I follow him with my head down, watching for ankle twisters and death traps. This is how life works right now. I can’t really look up too far, can’t look at the path ahead to see where I’m going. I’m just following.
But I see tiny, small things, beautiful in the trail. I see the foliage of coming foxgloves and tiger lilies, the turned-down heads of lady slippers and the fuzzy open face of the cat’s ear wildflower. I see the contrast in the tree trunks. I notice the centipede and the uncurling fiddlehead fern, and Tim tells me the deer and elk love the tender tops of them. I have this guide, these woods, and so much wonder.
A tight blanket has closed around our life. We are closer and closer to the things that are familiar and we have this chance to know them even better: our kids, our neighbors, our land, ourselves. I struggle for a big picture, afraid of what I might be missing. We don’t know much about May’s plans or what this fall will hold, but I am becoming an expert at the small things and the close things: today, for example.
I recently finished On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry, a book I highly recommend if you wonder what good beauty is in the world. There are parts hard to understand, but as I re-read certain highlights in my thoroughly marked up copy, I am happy to say I “get it” more each time I read. Bit by bit I can scratch the surface of Scarry’s thoughts and that’s enough.
Everyone everywhere has at least some small corner of beauty, some scrap of symmetry and flow and delight they can enjoy. This makes me feel better when I consider the overflow of beauty where I am—I can feel guilty of being blessed with too much, if that’s even possible. Lore Wilbert wrote recently: "God has given this life to you. This life. Right now. The one you’re living. It’s the only life you’ll get and God intended it in grace, goodness, sovereignty, and love for you. He stewarded it to you.” She’s writing about the snare of discontent that reaches in when we long for what we don’t have, but it’s also about the goodness of our very place, right now. It’s true whether we want more from our life, or feel some kind of Puritanical guilt over all our blessings.
Scarry writes about the concern that beauty is only for a certain elite group, or that beauty makes us forget the world around us and neglect justice. The opposite is true, she contends.
“The structure of perceiving beauty appears to have a two-part scaffolding: first, one’s attention is involuntarily given to the beautiful person or thing; then, this quality of heightened attention is voluntarily extended out to other persons or things. It is as thought beautiful things have been placed here and there throughout the world to serve as small wake-up calls to perception, spurring lapsed alertness back to its most acute level. Through its beauty, the world continually recommits us to a rigorous standard of perceptual care: if we do not search it out, it comes and finds us.”
The two parts of perceiving beauty Scarry mentions are first involuntary (as if I’m imposed upon by beauty) and then voluntary (I make a choice). My perception is increased by beauty and then I can choose to see more of it around me; repeat. I think she’s right. In my experience, whether it be simply the act of aging and hopefully becoming wiser (the two are not synonymous), or an intentional change in my focus, the more I behold beauty, the more I see beautiful things and beautiful people. Hebrews talks about having your senses trained to discern both good and evil (Heb. 5:14), and the Greek word for good in that text is used throughout the Bible to mean beautiful, handsome, excellent, eminent, choice, surpassing, precious, useful, suitable, commendable, and admirable.
If beauty comes after us and seeks us out, as Scarry implies, so does evil, and our task is to discern both. I don’t need to go looking for evil. But I do need to see beauty—to not be oblivious to it; to seek it out and find it with surprise. Plenty of needs and many Big Ugly Things will find me. The small, beautiful things come after me in order to wake-up my perception, which is always waning.
The small things make up a life. I was skimming through some old posts this morning and found this, from seven years ago:
He told me last night that I was a good housekeeper. Seventeen years of marriage, and I don't think he's ever phrased it quite like that. Such a small sentence with simple sentiment, nothing premeditated or planned. He just noticed and spoke it.
We can notice a thousand beautiful things and never take the time to speak them, because they seem small.
This morning for a small moment the sun blazes through living room windows, and I notice the gold rectangles on the wall. He laughs because I get giddy about small things.
But, he laughs.
I’m trying to wake-up perception here in this space, with the words and the pictures. It’s a small part (how appropriate), but it’s mine to do right now and I still believe the small things need to be spoken. Beautiful things have been placed here and there by the God who gives us senses—faculties of perception—to discern with. He is spurring lapsed alertness back to its most acute level, and we are just as responsible to discern the good as we are the evil.
