Effortless Beauty

There’s a crab apple tree outside my office window. I’d say it’s some 15 to 20 years old. Each spring it explodes into a wonderful cloud of pink blossoms that last for about 10 days.

It stands naked right now except for several thousand little crab apples arranged throughout its skinny tree limbs. They’ll all be eaten by hungry robins come spring. And here friends, hangs our lesson for the week.

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Against the dull gray sky, the tree is all in black silhouette. Each little crab apple hangs at random, like a drop- let along each branch. The whole tree fits exactly in my window as if it were a picture frame.

It’s perfect. And that’s the point. The tree just happened. There wasn’t a care in the world when each apple began to grow on the tree, yet it has a balance and proportion any artist would covet. You could entitle the art of my window view . . . “Crab Apple Against a Winter Sky”.

I’m sure you’ve seen this “effortless beauty” of nature for yourself. Walk through a pine forest. Look down at the random pine needles on the ground. They’re perfectly, beautifully arranged where they’ve fallen. See the perfect curve of the snow drift at the corner of your house (how did the wind get to be such an artist?). I won’t even start with the random beauty of clouds or sun light.

The point is . . . it’s exquisite. And it’s free for any eye that wishes to really look. Listen to the leaves in the wind, waves on the beach, thunder in the storm . . . they’re perfect in a wondrous way. And it all happens with a carelessness that would make any artist jealous for the brilliance it displays.

And guess what? It’s FOR YOU. God made it for you, not for any other creature. Do you think the deer in the forest gives a fig for the brilliant Fall leaves that surround it?

Does the eagle pause in midflight to marvel at the beauty in the valley below? Do the flames dancing in your fire place giving calm and comfort mean anything to your cat?

How little mind we give this gift. Sometimes I imagine the Lord saying, “Look, nobody gets it. I make all this cool stuff and all my creatures just take it for granted. Fish swim in it. Birds fly in it. Buffalo graze on it but not one “Wow!”. Not one, ‘Thanks Lord'”. You man, you woman. Can’t I get a little appreciation here.”

When you think about it, we humans are the spokespersons for the rest of creation. We have a voice to speak on behalf of the running stream, the soaring eagle . . . “Thank you Lord.”

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Pope Francis has written an encyclical called Laudato Si (“Praise be to You”). In it he points to an appreciation of this created world as a gift of God. He reminds us that the earth is humanity’s common home; it needs our care and protection in the way we use its natural resources. The generations to come have an equal right to drink clean water and breathe clean air.

But back to us humans for a moment. Of all the beauty of God’s creation, (the birds, the flowers, and yes, those little puppies) can you think of anything quite as captivating, and endlessly expressive as the human face? Why is that? Because it is the window to the human spirit . . . which, in case you’d forgotten, is a face that God had. To look on the human face is to see some faint image of God himself.

All this to say, “Oh Lord, how great thou art.” Open your eyes. His glory is everywhere.

Fr. Tim