Scripps Sunday #84 - Punta Arenas Edition

with continued prayers that you would be a noticer in the coming months...

Noticing Beauty

It’s not every day that you see it,

but sometimes beauty sneaks up on you

with a tenderness, a sweetness, so lovely

it hurts.

It sings to the heart

and makes it glad

that ever a baby laughed

or a parent smiled

at the hilarious solemnity of play.

Beauty brings a kind of grief.

Because its perfection rings so true

It calls out everything else

that has ever fallen short.

In me. In us. In everything.

But that’s the thing

It’s just the way of it:

That beauty will always be

crushingly lovely.

We are grass. We are fireflies.

We are the day that the Lord has made.

-Kate Bowler, Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day

Listen to my blinking eyes,

for at certain moments

when sunlight strikes just right,

or stars pierce the darkness just enough,

or clouds roll around just so,

or snow kisses the world into quietness,

everything is suddenly transparent…

and something in me is pure enough

for an instant

to see your kingdom in a glance,

and so to praise you in a gasp-

quick,

then gone,

but it is enough.

- Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace

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