I was reading an article recently about Leornardo DaVinci and his prolific creativity. The ability to imagine and then transfer those ideas into reality is an amazing gift. He wasn’t just an artist. He also invented things like early airplanes and helicopters. He had a phenomenal mind, a genius for sure. DaVinci was blessed with an immense amount of talent that we still get to enjoy these many centuries later.
This article also mentions another innovative creative thinker in the person of Steve Jobs of Apple fame. Jobs was concerned with the minute details of the products his company produced, including the wiring for his phones. The author asserts, “Both he (Jobs) and Leornardo (DaVinci) knew that real artists care about the beauty even of the parts unseen.”
Although the piece was in a secular magazine, I think this is analogous to the way the Divine Creator does things. Actually, I would go a step further and state that God, the Ultimate Artist, not only cares about “the beauty of the unseen parts;” God finds the greatest beauty there.
For the soul of a person is unseen by all but the Creator. The peace He offers us is unseen as is His grace; and the mercy that God bestows upon us is also invisible to the human eye. Finally the love with which God loves us is unseen. But the effects of all these gifts are evident to anyone who takes even a casual interest.
Beautiful things can elicit feelings of peace and even joy. Beauty can introduce us to the transcendent. And from there we can get to know our Creator better and so to love Him more. But the Creator of the visible and invisible is the only One who can give us true peace, grace, mercy, and love. The beautiful merely reflects it, gives it voice or gives us a glimpse of the eternal.
Yes, the Artist does care about the beauty of even the parts unseen, even more than He cares about what beauty we observe which He created. I used to tell my kids that God didn’t care about our outer beauty because, if He did, we’d all look like supermodels. Obviously, that is not the case! We are beloved no matter what we look like; no matter how we fall short, no matter our faults and our weaknesses.
We are beautiful in the eye of the Beholder. God beholds us in every second of every minute we are in existence. To know that you are the recipient of that perfect love is a beautiful thing. To live a virtuous life with the mercy, grace, and love of God is a natural desire once we are aware and, with God’s help, we can live that life.
The glory of the Lord can shine forth from us if we just allow the love that is God fill our hearts, our minds, our souls. And that is beautiful.
*Phrase first attributed to Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
Drowning in Lemonade 