I think that at points in (recent) history some people
rebelled at general social concepts of beauty, saw them as constraining and
demeaning (overly thin models, completely unnaturally made up faces, certain de
rigueur clothing styles). So there was a search for more natural looks and more
relaxed attitudes. Perhaps these have been taken to extreme. Personally, I
don’t find pyjamas a great outfit to see worn on the streets, nor do I like
jeans that fall half-way down someone’s bum to reveal their underwear or lack
of it. Others might say this is just my point of view and so what? I do think
that the naked human body can be beautiful, no matter its shape or age, though
I don’t particularly want to see it on the sidewalk everyday (besides in this
climate it doesn’t make sense most of the time). Certainly, I don’t believe
that we should all look like bankers or all dress alike, and what O’Donahue is
saying is not as simplistic as this. His ideas have worth and need to be
further examined.
O’Donahue aligns beauty with courage. We need courage to
live and the encounter with beauty, he says, can help to awaken courage. I
think he’s saying that beauty is more than superficial prettiness; the yearning
for beauty lives deep within the human heart, “a transforming presence wherein
we unfold towards growth almost before we realize it.”
Reading parts of this book I was reminded of a passage from
Leonard Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers. “God is alive. Magic is afoot.
God is alive. Magic is afoot. God is afoot. Magic is alive. Alive is afoot.
Magic never died. God never sickened. Many poor men lied. Many sick men lied.
Magic never weakened. Magic never hid. Magic always ruled.” And so on – it
continues for about a page and a half. If you want to hear it, listen to the
song by Buffy St. Marie. The words move me in a way that is not easily
described – they feel true, but not in a literal way, rather metaphorical,
spiritual – I said, I can’t describe it. It’s like a Zen koan, which you listen
to, hear, can’t explain, meditate on, and then suddenly at some moment it
blazes into your consciousness. I think that O’Donahue is talking about beauty
in this way. It can take us unaware – a view across blue water of distant misty
hills, a blaze of sunlight through dark clouds, dark green evergreens dusted
with snow on a chilly morning, a few words said by someone you care about, a
piece of music, a painting.
Everyone has their own memories of encounters with beauty.
Often, though we forget to look for beauty, neglect its lessons and
transformative powers. We move at such speed and among such noise that there`s
no space to stop, listen, look. A moment of beauty can be small or large, short
or long – take the time to watch for revelations of beauty in your life.
