Beautiful Moments of the Week

I was running early on Friday morning. It was still dark outside and the wind was blowing in the crisp air from the nearby canyon. I was listening to my "Josh Groban" Pandora radio station and a beautiful rendition of the song "Amazing Grace" was playing. The song got me thinking about the incredible gift of "starting anew" and being clean even with all my wretched weaknesses. Just then, I looked up and saw an American flag that was blowing in the wind. I was filled with gratitude for the having the freedom to act on what I knew to be right and for those men who sacrificed everything for that freedom. When I passed the flag, I noticed the myriad of stars shining in the morning sky and I thought of the worlds without number that have been created and of the beauty of the one in which I lived.

At that moment, while my heart was filled with gratitude, the Spirit filled me with the assueance that even amongst these countless worlds - the Creator of them all was aware of me - at that very moment - and cared about my cares. He wanted me to know He loved me and was there to help me. He made that world and beauty for me to learn to seek Him while I was away.

As I then rounded a corner on my run, I had view to the left of some city lights below me. I could see many lighted windows looking so still in the moonlight, and some headlights moving to and fro on the roads. It struck me that the glimmering starts above were ever present, gazing down at these lights below. Some of the earthly lights were busy - moving from place to place, but some seemed still as if gazing to Heaven and reaching towards from where they came. I could almost see them reaching their hands, like in Michelangelo's painting, toward God as He reached back to touch them.

(until I uploaded this picture, I hadn't realized how fervently God is reaching for Adam and how Adam seems to be considering if he should reach for God)

Even though I was running at that time, I felt like my soul was still... and reaching. So I felt God's love in return. Many times in my day, I get busy with the cares of life, like the busy headlights I saw below. But it struck me that, like the stars, God's light is constantly reaching anyway, waiting for me to be still again and look up so He can let me know He cares.

I have been trying to be more aware of the moments of beauty around me and am filled with love and awe more often in my day. Beauty takes me outside of myself and puts me in touch with God's reaching arm.

Here are some of the beautiful moments of my week:

We love this duck pond. It is in the city, but we have seen a baby deer, a moose and plenty of other wildlife here!

Throwing leaves down the stream

Studious girls!

Showing baby sister the ducks

Someone was walking their dog and stopped by to look at our family playing. At that moment, Bud asked if I wanted him to push James (who wanted to swing) and Bazinks offered to take Lady Bug down a slide. Suddenly, seeing this every-day moment from the watcher's perspective, I realized how much my kids help one another and how grateful I am for the chance they have to be home and practice doing it.

Reading Alcott's "An Old Fashioned Girl" while sitting by the tree. The scene screamed "wholesomeness" to me

Always a little daredevil

These were at a different duck pond while we waited during a piano lesson (Bud and Little Miss started piano lessons again this week)



Lady bug liked to chase the ducks.

Spice was busy studying again, but her brothers soon found a fish that was struggling to free itself from some plastic netting. Being the animal lover that she is, she tied to help them free it by attempting to cut the net with some sticks, my keys, and then by searching the car and miraculously finding some scissors to let it free.

Another studious girl!

Little Miss did a preschool lesson with the little boys about the platypus, she read them a book about the platypus, had them color one in, and for their snack she made "crab apples" (since the platypus eats shell fish.)

Celebrating the Pie Day of the century on 3-14-15 9:26:53 am!

Some of the youth from my Great Books Class "contemplating beauty" at an art museum on Friday. The girl in the blue dress came straight from a play practice, she doesn't always dress like a pioneer (just had to clear that up for those who already think strangely about us "homeschoolers" ;-) )

The joy of shopping at Harmon's!

She loves playing with baby dolls now and singing them "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star."

Cutie

 I didn't get any pictures, but I did take the four oldest to Rob Gardner's "Lamb of God" on Friday night. They all enjoyed it and we were all inspired. Definitely one of the beautiful experiences of the week! This is Little Miss's favorite song from the concert in a touching video:



I hope you all have beauty-full moments this week!

On Beauty (By John)

This is John's writing, but he couldn't find the link to post it himself so I offered to post it for him:

I go to Google images, and type “Beauty” into the search box. And what do I get? Women. Lots of pictures of women. Each one has perfect hair, perfect makeup, all smiling.  It doesn’t stop. The pages go on for a good long while. Endless pictures of “Beautiful” women. Eventually, the pictures start to become lewd and inappropriate. I stopped just a few scrolls down. It really got me thinking…. “What has this worlds version of beauty come too? It seems like all they care about is eyeliner and cheekbones.” Tried Youtube. Nope. “16 Beauty hacks. How to get beautiful faster!” Yahoo. Nope. Bunch of celebrity’s. Bing. Nope. More Women. The Chrome app store. Nope. “The beauty book! The beauty shop! Beauty and anti-aging secrets!” Nothing seems to give me a actual thing I could call “Beautiful.”

“Inner beauty should be the most important part of improving one's self,” Priscilla Presley says.

And yet, everyone ignores this principle and continues to try on the newest skin cream and hair products! They ignore the Beauty around them, be it in people or nature or art, and let themselves get caught up in worldly things. Why is this? I don’t know. Maybe society has developed into a point where it has taught  people to become narcissistic, in small ways. Selfies could be an example of this.

Beauty is something that can not be seen, but must be felt in the heart. One cannot do so when all they think about is themselves.

True Beauty Gives you Peace

 As we went to the museum and saw the art and the house, I felt the beauty, happiness, pure joy, and the spirit while we were there.
 My new definition of beauty is: something that makes you feel that pure joy because God is the only one who can give you that pureness, God is the only one who makes anything pure and as we are looking for that beauty God will help us find it.

Beauty helps me find peace. Did you notice when we went into the museum we all went quite and started to whisper? I think it was because there was the spirit and peace and it makes us want to keep that spirit and the spirit is quite so to hear that we have to be quite.

I just cleaned my bedroom and holy cow it feels so good, I just want to be in there because it is so much easier to feel peace and the spirit in clean places.

I know that the more you see and feel true beauty the more you want it and the more you are seeking  it out then the closer you can get to God.

Mirrors

So many things in today's world seem to be mediocre and base. The arts are especially so. The Vivaldi I am listening to right now seems to be good and beautiful, yet nobody appreciates that type of beauty anymore. Instead of the rich variety found there, we settle for the dry repetition of popular music. The same applies to art. It seems the Picasso's are far more valuable than the Monet's, the R. Kelly's over the Beethoven's, and the Stephanie Meyer's over Charles Dickens. Indeed, it seems that people today prefer mediocrity and average beauty over anything rich and gorgeous. 

 

I am of the belief that all beauty is a reflection of the divine. Everything in the world reflects some amount of divine beauty into our temporal world. This would then obviously require a hierarchy of beautiful things in life. This hierarchy seems to match what we see in the world today. Vivaldi reflects more divine light or truth to us than Louis Armstrong and he turn reflects more light than the Black-Eyed Peas. The same tiered format is found in every field or situation we can inspect. But if Vivaldi reflects more light, why does popular culture embrace and enshrine less beautiful things? 

  

 

Just as all things reflect a certain amount of divinity, I believe that each person can absorb a different amount of light and truth. Indeed, as we grow "line upon line" we will experience and "increase of learning" and our knowledge, understanding, and perception of beauty becomes more perfect and full. As divine light touches us and we internalize that light, we increase in our capacity to perceive light. 

Indeed, we can picture the world as a bunch of fun-house mirrors reflecting something which we cannot clearly see. Each mirror catches some of the truth, but only reflects that portion. Often this portion is distorted and confused because it is not the whole picture. But as we study the more perfect mirrors (such as the scriptures, words of the prophets, and other truthful things) we can gain a clearer perspective which helps us understand all the other reflections. If you are a person who has studied and understands the greater picture, these more misguided and warped perspectives seem less appealing. 

I hope this made sense, it's a complicated idea, and is one which I need to refine more. I hope each of us can become more perfect mirrors of God's light and will surround ourselves with other such mirrors. In the name of Jesus Christ, the light of the world, amen. 

We sometimes get distracted...

I just barely re-read the "Interest and Beauty in Works of Art" (I understood it TONS better the 2nd time), and it just made me think tons about our world today.

Our world nowadays is all about interest. The majority of us completely forget to look for beauty!

For instance... the books we read! Shakespeare's works (which Schopenhauer says are NOT based on interest--which I'm assuming means he thinks they are "beautiful") are hardly ever read by the normal people in this world!

We're all just looking for "interesting" things instead of paying attention to the beauty that's all around us!

I do this SO often, too, though! It's kind of embarrasing! :D It's like when it's a beautiful day outside, but instead of going and contemplating on the beauty that God has given us, I just go watch a movie, or even read a book!

I've noticed (a lot more lately) how many distractions are in this world--how many that take us away from God, or "absolute beauty". Perhaps the things we read, or the things we watch aren't necessarily bad, but I think that they still are distractions sometimes!

Like... today for instance! My siblings are sort of obsessed over playing on the computer--they get 30 min. per day, and if they don't get those 30 min., they FREAK OUT. Today was one of those days. The first one didn't get on until about 8 (which is supposed to be their bedtime), and then they ended up being awake until about 10, watching each other, and having to get their own computer time.

Things like that... computer time isn't necessarily a bad thing! But it is a distraction from perhaps what God might have us do. Or even when I just get so caught up in studying that I forget there's a sun outside or I forget to stop and smell the flowers I see as I'm walking!

Studing IS NOT at all a bad thing! But even too much of a good thing doesn't become good anymore. Like if we just read our scriptures all of the time! There is such a thing as too much of a good thing! I think we have to find the perfect balance! But one of the things that should be at the top of our list is contemplating God's beauty, praying, just remembering that He's there! Because even the good things may cause us to forget a little.

Well... with my all-over-the-place mind... I suppose I'll dance over to my word study on beauty that I did a while ago!

I found some really AMAZING quotes on beauty--this is one that really stood out to me:

I just feel like life has so much beauty involved in it! Heavenly Father loves beauty! I mean... all the detail that goes into His creations! We don't exactly "need" flowers to live, but Heavenly Father made sure to include them here when he created the earth! And think of the detail that goes into the texture on the trees... our fingerprints and handprints! It must have taken Him so much longer to create those things, and yet, He did it for us! So that we could recognize His beauty and love for us to go the extra mile like that!

Here's another one I really liked:

Like I was talking about earlier--I think we often times don't think a whole lot about all of the blessings God has given us! We don't always take the opportunity to see beautiful things! We always have opportunities, we just sometimes choose not to look.

And I'll just give you one more (my favorite):

For some weird reason... I've always LOVED the concept of light! It's always been one of my favorite things to use in analogies... and I just really love light! And I believe this quote is very true! To love beauty (or God--who is "absolute beauty") is to see light!

Thank you so much for listening to this! I really do love beauty! It's absolutely amazing! All of the things that God has given to us! I suppose all I have to say is that He never ceases to amaze me!

God is absolute beauty. I believe that on this earth, we can never create absolute beauty. God has sent us here to learn and to practice, so that one day, we may become just like Him-- which is all of our goals, isn't that right? ;)

Love you all!!!

~ Gracious

P.S. BTW, I'm sorry I got it to you the night before! :p At least it wasn't the morning of--like last week! :D

Pandemonium vs. Beauty

Alright, this song is my create inspirement for tomorrow, it's not exactly my thoughts about beauty, but as I watched the videos and thought about the different ways that art can be defined and whether abstract art really is "art," I thought I could make a song that pushes the limits of what music is. This song includes no recordings at all, every sound is computer generated. I don't even know if you would call it a song, but it's very abstract in that sense. I definitely wasn't going for beauty, I was going for creativity. But it is funny how beauty in music can be defined; I know a lot of people that would consider certain rap songs beautiful when in reality they are just garbage (I'm not dissing on rap as a genre, just on certain songs :D). Anyway, tell me what you think. Sorry, I know this is late.

Discovering Beauty...

Beauty. What is it? What makes something beautiful? Is it relative to the eye of the beholder? Is it unchanging? How is it created? What defines a piece of art as beautiful?
 

These questions have been running through my head for a while now, and I'm still on the quest to find the answers, but I thought writing out a bit of my two cents would help. :)

First: What is beauty? I think beauty is something that pleases the senses to a degree that ignites awe or inspiration. It is inseparable from truth.
 

Something that is beautiful gives us a sense of recognition or joy. It speaks remembrance to the divine nature inside each of us, and almost whispers a memory of our heavenly home. I think that's what transcendent beauty is. True beauty speaks to the soul.
 

I believe that some are more in tune to see different parts beauty than others. There are different degrees of beauty -like there are different degrees of light- but different people can see different aspects of that beauty depending on the work they put into it. For example: someone who has more experience in the art of cello playing can recognize the beauty of an accomplished cellist more than, say, me - who has no experience in that art. The beauty is still there, unchanging, but someone who has put effort into something will see the beauty in it more than someone who hasn't worked on that thing.
     

We are all gods in embryo: in training, so to speak. I think we can create beauty to a degree.
God is the only creator of pure beauty-beauty absolute. If we want to create something truly beautiful, we should learn from the master. :)