Beauty

V For Vendetta is a great flick. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes to think.

My friends know me to be a lover of lists. My journals are full of lists: top ten songs, top five movies, top five favorite places. There's a list coming up.

I've been thinking a lot about beauty. I think nature is beautiful. I love art and good music. My family is where I see beauty most, in my wife and children, particularly my wedding day, the births of my kids and how I view my wife after significant healing in our relationship took place a few years ago. After them, here's a list of five beautiful things I've experienced, it's impossible to come up with the top five, so this is just a sampling:

1. The love of life of a group of orphans outside Sofia, Bulgaria
2. A sunrise in late June 2003 over the Alps in Grenoble, France
3. Both guitar solos by David Gilmour in "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd
4. "Spirit of Autumn" -- a painting by George Inness
5. The movie "Hero"

Beauty is unique in that I don't think it can be counterfeited. Beauty is beauty and to counterfeit it is to remove the beauty. I love how the Psalms speak of God in reference to beauty:

"For God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love, loyal always and ever"

"God looms majestic in Zion, He towers in splendor over all the big names. Great and terrible your beauty: let everyone praise you! Holy. Yes, holy. Strong King, lover of justice, You laid things out fair and square; You set down the foundations in Jacob, Foundation stones of just and right ways. Honor God, our God; worship his rule! Holy. Yes, holy."

"Bow before the beauty of God, Then to your knees--everyone worship!"

"I'm asking God for one thing, only one thing: To live with him in his house my whole life long. I'll contemplate his beauty; I'll study at his feet."

God is beautiful, but I think a lot of us miss out on what that means. The list above makes me respond with emotion. Interacting with my family fills me with emotion. I think a lot of us have no idea what it means for God to be beautiful because we've never emotionally connected to Jesus and really looked Him in the face.

Here's the most beautiful thing about Jesus: grace.

My freedom is because of His grace. My joy is because of His grace. My peace is because of His grace. My hope is because of His grace. My redemption, His grace. My faith, His grace. My righteousness, His grace. That sunrise, His grace. That painting, His grace. That music, His grace. Those children, His grace. That movie, His grace. My family, His grace. Our church, His grace. His beauty is everywhere.

So how can you and I be beautiful? We can be full of grace. More about that next post.