"As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; / [ . . . ] Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: / Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; / Selves -- goes itself; 'myself' it speaks and spells, / Crying 'What I do is me; for that I came'." --Gerard Manley Hopkins

19 December 2009

"Beauty, Beauty, Beauty"

Something I wrote a few days ago:

We arrive on the college grounds before dawn, in mist that has required a slow but steady clicking of windshield wipers. Seen from my office suite's third-floor windows, the dark fog clinging to the trees and wavering over the lawn makes the quad appear submerged in a faerie sea. Later, as the sun rises, the fog thickens and whitens. On my way to class, I pause beneath an ancient pine between buildings: five feet away all is blurred, suffused into the mist, while the tree's rough trunk, its nearest branches with their baby cones, the cracks in the sidewalk, the browning of still-green December grass, all sharpen into relief and startle with a vividness lost in the past weeks' dull wintery grays. "Beauty, beauty, beauty." How can I so often find myself believing that God has abandoned this world He creates and loves, or the image-bearers with whom He has peopled it? "The dearest freshness deep down things" is always pressing its way up to prove me wrong.

6 comments:

Marcy said...

Lovely! I could see every tree, each drop of mist. How important it is to connect our God with these frequent, but often ignored, glimpses of the achingly sweet mysteries of this earth He has loaned us.

Beth Impson said...

Thank you, Marcy! I love it when you comment here!

ElenaLee (Barn Swallow) said...

Thanks for sharing this with us! I especially like glimpsing a beautiful moment in a place I love.

Beth Impson said...

You are welcome, Elena, dear!

Lydia McGrew said...

Thanks for the post, Beth. Wouldn't it be useful if there were "like" buttons for blog posts as there are on Facebook? :-)

Beth Impson said...

Thank you, Lydia and Scott.

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