Delivered on December 7, 2008
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Harford County
uufhc.net
Daniel Berrigan, poet, peace activist and Roman Catholic priest, was imprisoned for a few years in the late 1960’s for the public burning of draft files in protest of the Vietnam War. While in prison, he wrote the poem "Tulips in the Prison Yard." Within the gray, dull, lonely, repressive world of prison, Berrigan was able to see the defiant and transfiguring beauty of a tulip, both growing in the yard in conversation with its environment, and blooming beyond definition into unconfined radiance. The beauty of the tulips defied his state of being, calling him into connection and out of hopelessness.
Beauty can catch us unaware. It can draw us into a sense of wonder or humility faster than we can catch our breath. It can stop us in our tracks or soothe us out of despair. It can claim the moment from us and invite a deeper seeing. Beauty is what calls us to our understanding of worth and meaning in this exchange we call "being."
Through the last several years I have had the opportunity to walk our dog in the early morning. We have a lovely view of the sunrise emerging over distant trees and the gift of uncultivated fields, which deer and birds and our ever exploring, boundary-challenging dog enjoy. There is a stillness, if not a silence, that is sometimes palpable and an expanse of sky that offers free breathing and eternal seeing.
I’ve walked our fields sleepy, angry, joyful, confused, yearning for spiritual connection, deep in thought, burdened with worry, or sadness, light with a sense of abundance. I sometimes ask for wisdom from the fields and sometimes dance with abandon in the labyrinth. More often than not I am preoccupied with myself, trying to make sense of my being or a shape to my living. I’m sure the fields are constantly shouting in their own ancient knowing, "lighten up!" and when I sense that beckon, I become aware of beauty. In fact,\ in times of self-absorption I sometimes remember that message of wisdom that somehow broke through the self-important puzzle I was solving and said to me simply... and then, there’s beauty.
Sometimes when I take in a sunrise, when I let myself open as far as I can—my mind, my body, my spirit—in welcoming attention, the presence of beauty overwhelms me. I cannot take it all in and yet it is there for the taking. The generosity of beauty is astounding. It is ever available. It exists regardless of our gaze, whether we see it or not.
The phrase: "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is not about our power of judgement—that is, whether something is beautiful or not—but our willingness to see. Now of course there is preference and taste. Things appeal differently to different people and there are different resonances of being which can harmonize or seem dissonant. But all of it, all that is around us and within us, has a beauty about it. That beauty is depth of being—that beauty is the authentic call to become fully alive.
"We need to develop the art of reverence," Poet and theologian John O’Donohue claims in his book, Beauty, The Invisible Embrace. "Put simply, it’s appropriate that a person should dwell upon the earth with reverence... ultimately reverence is respect for mystery, but it’s more than an attitude of mind—it’s also a physical attention of the body that shows that the sacred is already here... Reverence is indeed the companion of humility," he writes, "and when we enter into reverence we are aware of the deep beauty at the heart of things. Our modern consumerist mindset has squandered all reverence and that is why it is so lonesome and empty... A sense of reverence opens pathways of beauty to surprise us."1
It is important to make a distinction between beauty and glamour. Glamour is something that excites the senses but does not last beyond its impression. Glamour feeds on consumerism the "I must have it and show that I have it" mindset. Beauty is the expression of what is essential about a place, a person, a friendship, a soul. It is not something that is seeking a reaction or claiming territory or competing for attention. We can be dazzled, distracted, even controlled by glamour. Many of us focus our lives on assumptions of glamour and the lure of popularity and judgment which glamour brings.
Beauty, on the other hand, does not play favorites, or demand a certain kind of attention. Beauty calls us to our deeper knowing, that we have a love of being within which can be recognized and welcomed in our experience of the moment. Beauty invites us to expand beyond our own sense boundaries and acquired wisdom into a home—a belonging—that welcomes us in. This wisdom of beauty can be found in nature, in companionship, in experience and in silence. And, of course, in art.
Artists help call us to our soul's resonance. Through their engagement with beauty’s essence in the courage and surprise of creativity, artists signal a way to transcend our loneliness and find a calling that welcomes us home into the fullness of being.
Martha Graham, 20th century dancer and choreographer, articulated the invitation of the artist in her descriptions of dance: "There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action," she offered, "and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open."2
This vitality that Graham speaks of, this life force, is what gives us a sense of possibility. It is the urging that keeps us reaching for meaning and understanding, for discovery and invention.
I’ve sometimes wondered at the nature of our creation, that we, indeed, are hard wired to find it beautiful. There is a simple logic of survival there and a deeper logic of peace. Beauty beckons us to the extraordinary possibilities of our lives and welcomes us to realize the absolute belonging of our being.
There is a Navho night chant:
Beauty before me, I walk with.
Beauty behind me, I walk with.
Beauty above me, I walk with.
Beauty below me, I walk with.
Beauty all around me, I walk with.
Just as the presence of beauty can call us to an embrace of our being, so it can help heal our brokenness. We come together inside when we experience beauty. A wide expanse can help us not take ourselves so seriously. It can encourage us to understand hope—that there is more out there, more in our life than what we can make or experience, that there is a possibility, a way out of our stuck places. Beauty, and our recognition of it, can help us know our strength within. Beauty can feel cruel, for it will not reflect one’s damage.
"There is a place in you where you have never been wounded," writes John O’Donohue, "where there's a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you."3
A bit of the flow of wisdom that emerges from our lunch bunch sessions, a lunch hour discussion group that meets twice a month, speaks to this kind of confidence. One of our resident theologians (a role we all embark on now and again) brought up a story about Byron Katie, an inspirational author, widely known for her method of inquiry called "The Work," which addresses the healing of suffering and unhappiness.
In 1986, after ten years of deep and penetrating depression, anger, and addiction, Byron Katie woke up one morning with an inspiration toward healing herself. She then was able to share this method she named "the work" with millions who resonate with her journey.
When seekers first came to her house to come to know this inspiration, they would bow and murmur the traditional Sanskrit blessing 'Namaste', which means "the divine in me honors the divine in you,"l; or "the light in me sees the light in you." Byron Katie thought they were saying 'No mistake'.4
In that one affirmation, though strangely and yet accurately misheard, the claim of beauty of self, of an affinity with the wise, illimitable being was claimed. It is from there that our healing begins. It is from there that we realize, no matter what the damage, no matter what the struggle, that a path toward healing is available to us, if we but pay attention to the beauty before us and within us.
When I was giving birth to Michael, I brought in a picture of Sarah, then three, to remind me of the wonderful outcome of the endeavor of giving birth. I would look at her beautiful face to en-courage me toward the labor intensive journey. It was a nice idea. It didn’t work. Beauty can’t be used to distract you from what’s happening, it can only enhance what’s truly going on. I’m sure the thought of the beauty of my daughter helped me want to welcome my son, and I have indeed been given the gift of seeing their beauty in the days that followedרa beauty that never fades. But beauty accompanies your experience, and gives it meaning beyond your imagining. Beauty also welcomes you to enter in and add your response.
And so, Daniel Berrigan, imprisoned, could regard the tulips in the prison yard as part of his reality, woven into the work of his days:
"Many poets, believe me, could do better by your sovereign beauty," he wrote,
"your altogether subtle transfiguration of blank nature—
so winds, nights,
sunlight colorless wraiths and drawn into
what can only be called a 'new game'.
Well, I will not glory in Infirmity.
Yeats, Wordsworth would look once
Breathe deeply, sharpen their quills,
With a flourish pluck you from time.
But.
You are jail-yard blooms, you wear
Bravery with a difference
You are born here will die here;
Making you, by excess of suffering
And transfiguration of suffering, ours."5
May you have moments to rest in the beauty of things, friendships that soothe the inner loneliness of our lives, art that entices your response and a sense of nature that opens your heart.
So may it be. Amen.
Copyright © 2008 Lisa Ward. All Rights Reserved.