Beauty Within

13 Jun

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have met people in my life who do nothing but complain.  They say that this is a very ugly world, that there is no love, no compassion, and no mercy.  They say that there is nothing good to be found within this world of ours.

There are so many times that I want to say to those kinds of people, “It is not because of the world.  It is because of you.  You are ugly inside and without love and without compassion and without mercy.  How can you expect to find beauty outside yourself if you do not know what beauty is within?”

We live in a world that is filled with beauty.  Yes, there are problems, I will give you that.  There is war and poverty and famine.  There is hatred and violence.  We can find all of that quite easily, sometimes even without looking.  But that is not what we are supposed to be about.

We are not supposed to look for the bad.  We are supposed to look for and cherish the good.  The world is filled with good.  It is filled with people who love and care for one another.  It is filled with people who would sacrifice themselves for another — even a total stranger — if need be.  It is filled with people who love unconditionally.  It is filled, in short, with holy witnesses of God’s love.

Each of us is given a choice every day of our lives.  We can either look for and find the bad or we can look for, cherish, and even model the good.  When all is said and done, how would we like to be remembered?  Would we want people to say, “That person was filled with ugliness, hate, and spite” or do we want people to say, “There was a lot of love in that person?”

Be the person you want the world to believe you are.  Open your minds and hearts to the beauty of the world around you.  Be one of the beauties of God’s creation.

FAITH ACTION:  Bring to mind the beauty of your life — experiences, graces, people — and take the opportunity to give God proper thanks for them so that you may recognize the beauty that is all around you.