It's all in the eye of the beholder

Right?

Beauty.

This past Sunday at church we were challenged to see beauty. See the beauty in New York City. See beauty as Christ saw beauty. See beauty in our own lives, especially those places that God longs to take from completely collapsed to ravishing.

When thinking of the times I've experience beauty, so often I think of nature, and creation and Earth. I think of The Cliffs of Moher or The Muir Woods or even the black, star-filled sky over my the house I grew up in.

I think of a rainbow that we saw somewhere in Wyoming or Montana while living out of our Nissan Altima with The Stockhammer's right before leaving Texas for New York City. It was a semicircular double rainbow so Lora and I were able to get our husbands to stop the car for photos. We all stood in silence. And Lora and I cried and had "a moment."

I think of twirling in Scottish grass surrounded by18th century castle ruins. I think of the Tyler Rose Garden on my wedding day, of sunsets seen from our cruise-ship balcony, of crashing waves - pulsing and pulling.

But when I think about New York City, it's hard to think of beauty. It's hard for me to find the beauty. I know it's here, and I believe that it's here, but maybe my judgement is just skewed. Maybe I need to ask God to show me where the beauty is!

Even though beauty is almost impossible to define, you know it when you see it. Because when we experience beauty we are humbled. We are changed. Even when we are unaware and even when the artist doesn't even know it- beauty can bring us closer to God. It can move us to a place where we know, We Know there is someone greater than us. Who else could create a tiny, perfect baby fingernail?

I know it was beauty I experienced when I saw the venus de milo. It was beauty I experienced when I held my little brother for the first time and when I walk through my mom's garden -brimming with color and food and flowers. And it was something like beauty when I got to sit and listen and sing and hear James Taylor and Carol King live.

But in the city, in my day-to-day I'm asking God to help me see past the concrete and trash and angst filled subway rides. Even past Central Park and Bryant Park and Carl Schurz Park (It's easy to find beauty there. I'm drawn to nature in this metal machine.)

Just this morning in the gray snow I saw: chewed up bubble gum, cigarette butts, a blue rubber glove, a Bud Light can, dog poop, a banana peel, a plastic knife, the cardboard from the inside of a toilet paper roll, a black fleece lined glove, a lottery ticket, and the plastic lid from a coffee cup. This was on my block alone. Not to mention the Christmas trees that still lay in massive piles on every corner. Some still covered in lights. Some in tinsel. Some still in their stands. New Yorkers can't be bothered to un-decorate, or more likely it's that we have no where to keep things like tree stands or Christmas lights.

But I know beauty is here. Mostly, I see it in the faces of people. In dad's pushing a strollers and Nathan, the little boy who lives on our floor, running back and forth in the hallway at 7:00pm when I'm sure both he, and his dad- who's rolling the ball with him- are restless. In the voice of a little girl singing a nursery rhyme at the bus stop; a song I had long forgotten, but remembered immediately when I heard the tune. I'm not sure if it's hope or a sense of genuineness or simply freedom- but there's something there. Something slower and fresher. Something untainted and more authentic than most of this city is.