I live in a tiny town and go to a small church that is blessed with several good teachers. On Sunday, one of our elders (a certified genius), was teaching about worldview while our pastor took a much needed vacation. He posed this question to us: In what ways do humans differ from animals?
We try to get out of the Clergy-Laity mold at our church, and there is often feedback from the crowd during a church service. Our teachers encourage us to interact with the message and ask questions, give answers, and fellowship over the Word. It's awesome and scary, all at once.
A few people offered answers to the question Sunday. We talked about love and empathy, compassion, self-sacrifice. I had words burning in my heart and I stuffed them there, but they've been smoldering all week and it's time for them to come out.
We, created in the image of a Beautiful God, have the ability to appreciate beauty.
That's what I thought of when I thought of the difference between mankind and the animals. I thought about the way I appreciate the cloud forms, the sun through the window, the perfect symmetry of a flower, the colors in the garden.
We all appreciate different forms of beauty, but I think it's hard-wired in us to look for it.
So today, I'm sharing some beauty I've been appreciating lately. I can lean hard towards cynical and sarcastic, but God disperses beauty in my life and I want to honor Him by truly seeing it.
THE CLOUDS.
The camera roll on my phone is full of these. I don't know if this has just been an exceptional season for some amazing clouds, or if maybe my eyes, which tend to focus on the ground and the floor and the laundry and the filth, are shifting upward and looking more. Appreciating beauty in all it's free forms.
My family is starting to point them out now, too.
THE GARDEN.
It's full of goodness, and I'm no green thumb. God's imagination made plants that bear fruit that bear seeds. We stick them in the ground, water them, and then feed on their goodness and their beauty.
My son planted a seed from a store-bought acorn squash this spring, and it's prolific, I tell you. I'm on the hunt for recipes.
THE WORDS
This Autumn Manifesto from Tonia? Makes me want to slow down and find the gorgeousness of every. single. day.
And this one from Kelli. If your kids are done with diapers and your days are busy with activities that teenagers pull a family to, read this and remember. If your days are about diapers and naptime and "heart-to-heart chats over toilet seats", read this and savor the moments.
PHYSICS?
Yes.
This girl, this beauty with beauty inside, she made my homeschool-mama-day this week when she said that she liked her new physics course.
Liked it, people. Enjoyed her book, was interested in the left-brained orderliness and facts and laws, and was motivated to glean all she could from it.
You guys, the angels sang. Because it has been a hard transition back to school this year, and I've felt defeated and discouraged and like a failure.
And then, she liked it.
THE LAUGHTER.
A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance... {Pro 15:13 NKJV}
We've been reading a book together at lunch time (for about a year now) and it's full of humor encased in large words. We love it.
It's about a boy and all his mishaps and mischievous doings, all the unintentional trouble a boy finds when he's just being a boy. This week, he was daydreaming in class.
Penrod was flying in his daydream. Lifted out of his classroom, through the window, all around the town, and serenaded by a parade the townsfolk were giving in his honor. He saw the girl of his dreams. He floated above all the adults who constantly reproved him. He was free and he was noticed.
And then.
Miss Spence - in the flesh - had directed toward the physical body of the absent Penrod an inquiry as to the fractional consequences of dividing seventeen apples, fairly, among three boys, and she was surprised and displeased to receive no answer although to the best of her knowledge and belief, he was looking fixedly at her. She repeated her question crisply, without visible effect; then summoned him by name with increasing asperity. Twice she called him, while all his fellow pupils turned to stare at the gazing boy. She advanced a step from the platform.
"Penrod Schofield!"
"Oh my goodness!" he shouted suddenly. "Can't you keep still a MINUTE?"
Not everyone will appreciate this book. It's old, the language is not always politically correct in the 21st century, and younger kids will miss most of it. But if your kids are generally well-behaved-with-a-side-of-ornery, and if your school day is a little monotonous at times, you might laugh.
Laughter is a beautiful thing.
THE WORSHIP.
We are blessed to have some young adults around us who truly, genuinely love the Lord. And, they have great talents.
Enjoy this song. (Link will take you to YouTube.)
