10/28/12

The Small Things

     After watching the film American Beauty for my sociology class, I have begun more and more to notice the beautiful things I am surrounded by.  Especially here, to quote Ricky, "Sometimes there's just so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it.  Like my heart is just going to cave in."  Beauty is everywhere in the Shenandoah Valley right now, and even though it's going to get wet and cold and miserable over the next couple of days, it will still be there.  Beauty can be found in almost anything, not just the obvious.  You only have to look for it, and more than that, you have to be able to feel it.  The sensation is hard to describe, even to someone who is familiar with it.  You have to have felt it to understand, and you have to understand to feel.  So pretty much, if you weren't born with it, you're out of luck.  But most people are born with it, so you're not hopeless.  Sometimes it just gets buried inside of you, under all of the superficial things that make up our lives.  You have to get past the makeup and the clothes and the friends and the relationships.  The fad diets and workouts so that your body can be what society considers beautiful.  Your own insecurities.  You have to let all of that go, at least for a moment, and just allow what is around you to wash over and around and through you like an ocean.  Let yourself drown in it, because when you get to the other side, you will not be the same, and that's a good thing.  Surround yourself with beauty, with encouragement, with joy and love.  But let yourself feel.  Not just the good feels, either.  Feel joy and love and happiness and success, but also feel pain and remorse and sorrow and despair.  Let yourself go, just for a little bit, and explore those feelings.  If you don't know what it's like to truly hurt, then you cannot know true healing.  If you keep pulling yourself out without letting yourself go down, you can never really get away from it.
     I saw something beautiful today.  Actually, I saw many beautiful things today, but the one that struck me the most was a little girl.  She sat in the row behind me at church, and I heard her 7-year-old voice singing the hymns and reciting the prayers as if she'd known them for years.  Then, when the pastor called for the children to come forward, she got up and marched to the front of the church for the piece of the sermon that, for today, was entirely her own.  She was the only child in the entire congregation, and I wondered if perhaps Rev. Bolin would simply deliver his usual message, ignoring the fact that there was only one small girl sitting in the front row.  But he didn't.  He sat down in front of her and proceeded to tell her about the coming storm, and how Jesus was her rock in all of life's storms.  He reminded her of the story of the two houses, one built on sand, and the other on rock.  By now, he was talking to her and her alone, and we were merely observers.  But what fascinated observers we were.  I know I was not the only one who leaned forward to catch every one of the living, breathing, hope-filled words he uttered to that little girl.  He shared with her, but we drank it in as well. And perhaps we also got something a little more.  By watching not only him, as he shared the gospel in words the child would understand, but also by watching her, young as she is, listening and loving and believing them.  It was beautiful on so many different levels.
      I can only hope I've painted the picture well enough for you to see what I saw, and feel what I felt, and know what I knew.  For that is the ultimate goal of a writer, is it not?  To impart to others through their words a picture or an emotion or a sensation.  Preferably all three, so that the reader is part of a story not their own.  To offer up a piece of their soul in hopes that someone will understand.  It takes a lot of insight, to create something that hundreds, maybe thousands of people will relate to.  It takes a lot of hope to put something out there not knowing how it will be received, but knowing that, whatever happens, you have put your all on the line and created something that is irreparably part of you, and will become a part of someone else.

1 comment:

  1. I understand. I fear the pain too much to truly be part of the beauty. I hope this stage passes for me and, more than that, I hope you never pass through this stage. Putting your heart on the line is risky business. When you stop doing it, though, your heart begins to be locked away-in an attempt to be safe from pain, it is actually hardened to beauty and hope.

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