Gratitude Creates Beauty

I came late to the appreciation of beauty as an essential human experience. The aesthetic hierarchy of my Conservative Mennonite upbringing didn’t reserve a place for beauty, or at least it wasn’t high on the list of priorities. Clean came first, which is why the list of Saturday chores invariably included cleaning your room, polishing your shoes, and washing the car. Useful came net, followed by durable. beauty only played a role when it came to describing God’s creation (it was fine to say a flower or a sunset was beautiful) or the dwelling place of God in heaven (“where the gates are of pearl, and the streets are of gold, and the buildings exceedingly fair,” as my maternal grandmother’s favorite hymn puts it). When it came to human beings and human creations, either beauty indicated vanity (human labor produces “vanity of vanities,” according to the Hebrew Bible), or it posed a source of temptation (the Christian New Testament warns against “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”).
#stewartlifecoaching #gratitude #beautyintheeyeofthebeholder