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seeing gray

Posted on September 27, 2007 | Filed Under beauty, justice, the natural world 

Writing in Sojouorners magazine (In the prison-industrial complex, is there hope for redemption?), Nancy Hastings Sehested, a Baptist minister and prison chaplain, describes a North Carolina maximum-security prison this way:

Colorful flowers mark the path to the gatehouse. Then the stripping away begins in earnest. It is a gray day every day in this prison. Gray walls, gray floors, and gray ceilings. The gray uniforms worn by the men can fade their faces into obscurity. The blue uniforms of the staff can create the same effect. Holding a gaze is crucial in seeing the person beyond the clothing. A simple …

beauty, and life, take time

Posted on April 27, 2007 | Filed Under beauty, spirituality 

I really liked today’s entry at inward/outward … so I am taking the liberty of reprinting it here for you!

By Macrina Wiederkehr

Life unfolds
a petal at a time
slowly.

The beauty of the process is crippled
when I try to hurry growth.
Life has its inner rhythm
which must be respected.
It cannot be rushed or hurried.

Like daylight stepping out of darkness,
like morning creeping out of night,
life unfolds slowly a petal at a time
like a flower opening to the sun,
slowly.

God’s call unfolds
a Word at a time
slowly.

A disciple is not made in a hurry.
Slowly I become like the One
to whom I am listening.

Life unfolds
a petal at …

love and war

Posted on February 25, 2007 | Filed Under arts and culture, beauty, war 

We were visited by a major winter storm in Iowa this weekend, and our Saturday and Sunday plans (which were many!) were cancelled. We enjoyed some good down time, a fire in the fireplace, and we watched two movies, two among the list of movies we have been wanting to preview. The two movies could not have been more different!

The one was about beauty: the beauty of love, of loyalty, of humility, of service, of human creativity, of the smallest details of the natural world. The other was about ugliness: the ugliness of war, the ugliness it does to …

the face in the mirror

Posted on September 19, 2006 | Filed Under beauty, justice 

You should review the short documentary film made by a New York City high school student: A Girl Like Me. A September 19 editorial by Leonard Pitts led me to the site. As he writes, Be warned: if you have a heart, the new doll test will break it.

Our culture does a very poor job at recognizing and affirming real beauty. I believe beauty is there to be found, in many different sizes and shapes … and colors. So many fail to see beauty when they look into a mirror — or look into their own souls — because …

a view through the trees

Posted on September 2, 2006 | Filed Under beauty, favorite posts, personal life, spirituality, the natural world 

I like this photograph.

It is different from most of my other Monhegan photos — no stunning cliffs rising from the sea, no waves exploding on the rocks guarding the shoreline, no colorful lilies or picturesque lighthouses or interesting people — just this view through the trees.

Is it a photograph of the sea or is the sea just the background? Is our attention drawn by the dead tree in the foreground or do we see past the tree? …

a beautiful place, a beautiful moment

Posted on July 19, 2006 | Filed Under beauty, personal life, the natural world 

Last Saturday, on a beach on the shores of Lake Huron, my son was married. What an extraordinary setting for a wedding! And what a privilege to perform the ceremony …

making beauty

Posted on January 14, 2006 | Filed Under arts and culture, beauty, favorite posts, grace, spirituality 

(Originally published Saturday, December 31, 2005)

I have been doing a bit of ranting lately … about the horrors of the death penalty, about the scandal of an administration that is reluctant to expressly disavow torture, about the shortsighted greed that would rather despoil an untouched wilderness than spend the time and money to develop alternative energy sources or to find ways to use our present energy resources more efficiently.

But I want to end the year on a positive note! Because in spite of all its ills and all our failings, the world in which we live is filled with …

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