The greatest refuge in life is beauty. Remarkably, I tend to forget this obvious truth until I feel myself immersed in something ugly – violence, injustice, or just a bad mood. It is then that some image of beauty rises up to rescue me.
Sometimes, that image appears in something as everyday as the birds in my backyard. Other times, it may appear in something as gorgeous as Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4 or something else human-made like one of Liz Wessel's mandalas.
I have three lines posted on the mirror I look into each morning and none of them specifically includes the word Beauty. They are Love, Laugh, Let Go. Which of those words helps the most?
The answer, for me, is the second one. Obviously, Love is the biggest and most important word there is. But, Love does not always send me clear instructions.
Letting go is a great concept. It is also the hardest for many people to live.
When my eyes settle on the single word "laugh," however, some kind of lovely energy passes through me. Laughing acts like a trigger awakening both Love and the experience of letting go.
It's difficult to feel up tight when we're laughing. And it's almost impossible to take yourself seriously when good humor shakes open your heart.
As you can see, I am already taking myself too seriously. The worst writing I do in the Journal comes when I try to hand out instructions.
But, here's a suggestion anyway. Try putting a word or two up on your mirror. Make it a different word every day for a week. At the end of seven days, see which ones were most helpful.
This sounds like one of those big self-help things I usually don't like, but it has helped me. In fact, maybe it's time for me to change the words I see each morning so that powerful words don't lose their energy by being repeated too often.
We all know that beauty and ugliness flood the world. The more I see of ugliness, the more I know of beauty. And there is no more comforting word to me than this one: Beauty.
Time for a new word. "Beauty" will appear on my mirror tomorrow morning so that it will be the first word I see.
How much wonderful energy flows through your heart when you contemplate that single six-letter word and what it means to you?
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
Leave a reply to ann kaiser Cancel reply