What Beauty Does

I love meeting people along hiking trails (or in airports). Strangers on a journey — our paths crossing for a moment in time. 

At the bottom of Summit Peak I met an older gentleman who hailed from Chicago. He had back-packed up in the Porkies in the ‘90’s and now he had brought his family up for the experience. I asked him what the highlight of the week was, “Oh, you know how the wilderness is — it was terrible and wonderful all at the same time!” 

I loved that. 

He was right. Biting flies, mosquitoes, sore knees from steep inclines. But then there were the refreshing plunges into Lake Superior, and the crystal clear star-scapes in the night sky. And the smell of the pines, who can inhale enough of their fragrance and be satisfied? 

Life is like that too, I thought, — a mixture of terrible and wonderful. The juxtaposition of suffering and joy. Biting experiences with moments of refreshing that ease sore hearts and clarifying perspectives that set our minds aright once again. 

I’m thankful for it all — the wild, the wonderful, the perspective forged by the terrible, the juxtaposition, the joy. I’m thankful that at the end of the day; the suffering rights itself to have some merit and that the beauty at the day’s end is so punctuated because that’s what beauty does for us [or rather, to us]

as the salve that heals
the life that breathes
the color the recolors
re-enlivening as harbinger of rest
solicitor of energy 

beauty 

giver, gift of [to] our souls 🥂