Beauty

I saw one of the most wondrous sights of my life today.

As I drove along a road, near my home, I saw a small pond. This "pond" was made of rain water and snow that had melted by the road (actually, highway) and a small body of water had formed. So truly, it was a small body of pretty dirty, probably muddy water. Yet, it captivated me.

The slow moving ripples along the surface. The small wind-stirred waves that made the entire pool look as though it were made up of thousands of tiny mountains and valleys. But mostly, the reflection of the sky in the water. The many shades of blue were spectacular. Cerulean, azure, sky blue, a royal shade. Every type of blue I have ever seen or imagined was captured in that water.

And then I realized, that the water was not beautiful, rather, the sky was.

The sky had incredible colours and variety today, mostly in anticipation of a coming summer storm. The vast magnitude of the sky, the many colours and beauties it contained were fortuitously reflected back at a perfect angle for me to have a perfect moment of beauty.

This happens often in our lives as well. We often see someone who is beautiful, or something that captures our imaginations, our hearts and we see that object or individual and we know that it is special. However, what we see as beauty, be it internal or external, is often simply a reflection of something greater.

I am sure if I return to that pool tomorrow and take a very close look at the water, I will see many imperfections and possibly I will not see the same beauty I saw today. In fact, if it is a rainy day, I may even think the sky that was the source of the beauty looks quite drab. However, what has been seen cannot be unseen. The moment I had, that moment of pure beauty remains.

Maybe this is how God is? Maybe God shows us glimpses of His beauty in our daily lives, but never enough beauty to fully satisfy us. Maybe, even if we look at what we believe to be the source of beauty, we still may not continually see what we wish to see... because true beauty is not meant to last forever. True beauty is a concept which we can only experience for a short moment, for it serves as a small taste, a reminder that we are in the end meant to keep searching.