“I did not have to ask my heart what it wanted because of all the desires I have ever known, just one did I cling to for it was the essence of all desire: to know beauty.”  St. John of the Cross

“One thing I desire . . . to behold the beauty of the Lord.”  Psalm 27

“The touch of beauty is enough to quicken our hearts with the longing for the divine.”  John O’Donohue

Fall has come to the Colorado Mountains.  The quaking aspen are performing their glorious dance that necessitates a change of wardrobe from green to gold.  The colors are brilliant, beautiful, and bold, lighting the sides of the mountains with a glowing beauty that is nothing less– or other than– Divine. 

In observation of this short-lived wonder, I did two things on Friday:  Took a walk into the mountains and re-opened the book “Beauty” by John O’Donohue.  Both had the effect of reminding me that the contemplation and discovery of God is in beauty.  The mystics, as witnessed in the quotes from above, were all about this.

“When we hear the word ‘beauty’, we inevitably think that beauty belongs in a special elite realm where only the extraordinary dwells.  Yet without realizing it, each day each one of us is visited by beauty.”[1]  That visitation may be obvious, like the fall colors, or inconspicuous like a person who is suffering and is placed in our path.  Whatever form it may take that visitation of beauty brings us into the Presence of God.  For God, though many things, is nothing less or other than beauty.

God is not only the source and author of beauty, but the inhabitant and indwelling as well.  To be in the presence of beauty is to be in the Presence of God, and vice-versa.  “The beautiful stirs passion and urgency in us and calls us forth from aloneness into the warmth and wonder of an eternal embrace.”[2] Perhaps the most grievous sin for which one is guilty is the failure to appreciate beauty and in so doing become aware of God.  St. Augustine sums it up this way: “Too late came I to love thee!  Beauty, ever ancient, ever new, too late came I to love thee!”

If creation is the first bible, as St. Francis said, then certainly the beauty of the earth is the first beauty, the most original, and the place one is best equipped to contemplate God.  It was with this in mind that I dropped what I was doing on Friday to walk and wonder, revel and rejoice in the beauty of the yellow aspen of Colorado.  O’Donohue devotes an entire chapter to the beauty of colors, including yellow. “The color yellow holds such warmth, brightness and attraction for us because it is the color of the source that sustains us.  Goethe says, ‘Yellow brings with her the nature of brightness and has a delightful, encouraging, exciting and soft quality.”[3]  The yellow of the leaves appeared as a multitude of small gold coins shimmering against the green boughs of the Ponderosa pine.  The path I followed took me through glades and meadows, with the aspen making both bold and subtle appearances.  At times the forest would open, and I could see the yellow hues decorating the sides of the more distant hills.  In time the ascending path led me to an overlook where I could look down into the Wild Basin and lift my eyes up to Mount Meeker and the range it anchors.  I sat down on a large rock, reclining into the breast of God as it were, relishing in the breeze blowing ever softly, the sun shining warmly on my face, and the silence and solitude, like salve for my soul.  It was a sacred experience, simultaneously soothing my soul and nurturing my spirit.  Time was suspended, the moments and minutes spent there seemed heavenly, like an eternity.  All my doing was set aside, and all that mattered was being, receiving the gift of heavenly beauty which the God who IS beauty had given.

I leave you with this blessing of beauty by O’Donohue, and invitation if you will, to recognize and relish the beauty of God.

“As stillness in stone to silence is wed

May your heart be somewhere God might dwell.

As a river flows in ideal sequence

May your soul discover time is presence.

As the moon absolves the dark of distance

May thought-light console your mind with brightness.

As the breath of light awakens color

May the dawn anoint your eyes with wonder.

As spring rain softens the earth with surprise

May your winter places be kissed by light.

As the ocean dreams to the joy of dance

May the grace of change bring you elegance.

As clay anchors a tree in light and wind

May your outer life grow from peace within.

As twilight fills night with bright horizons

May Beauty await you at home beyond.”

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[1] “Beauty” by John O’Donohue, p.12

[2] IBID. p. 14

[3] IBID, p. 101