Isn’t beauty just one of those things? One of those things we recognize but can’t put in a box?

Sort of like love, beauty is illusive and ever-present, known yet hard to define, taken for granted and blissfully indulged in. And, like love, beauty is something we seldom fully trust as inalienable, even though it is within and all around us.

In Galway Kinnell’s poem, St. Francis and the Sow, he writes that:

    … everything flowers, from within, of     
    self-blessing;   
    though sometimes it is necessary
    to reteach a thing its loveliness,
    to put a hand on its brow
    …and retell it in words and in touch
    it is lovely
    until it flowers again from within, of     
    self-blessing…

What a gift that would be, if we were to encourage one another to flower from within. And, perhaps this is something that I didn’t do enough as your minister, that is, to put my hand on your brow and tell you of your loveliness, so that you would blossom from self-blessing.

Let me say it here and now. You are lovely. You are beautiful. Trust that.

Still here if you need me,
Rev. Julie