Thoughts on Beauty

This weekend has been a fantastic one! My sister graduated on Friday. My friends got married on Saturday, where I attended my first Catholic wedding... BEAUTIFUL! I spent some time with old friends from school and I picked up an old hobby, art. I'm practicing drawing portraits. It's extremely complicated! I was reminded of the beauty of classical music by an old friend, which brings me to the point of this blog.

Truth is beauty.

It's not necessarily the type of beauty we think of, but an incomprehensible beauty. My sister is growing up and going on to college. What a beautiful gift! We are so blessed in the US with so many opportunities. Two college friends got married on Saturday. I cannot even begin to describe how beautiful the ceremony was. Phenomenal sacrament that can only begin to be understood in the lens of divinity. The trinity coming down to unite two into one flesh... beautiful.

Classical music, while complicated and intricate, is beautiful. It may not be the catchy, cheap new type of music that pops up on the charts for a few weeks. It has a lasting beauty that is more fulfilling than an instant beat made with a computer and put rhyming lyrics. Don't get me wrong, I like the chart toppers now and again, but I feel at peace when listening to classical music. I feel a presence of the divine almost, a contemplative nature arises within.

The subject of my sketch work today has been the female portrait. I haven't moved to the male portrait yet. For some reason the female face contains much more beauty than the male... In order to draw a human face, one has to pay attention to every detail to transfer it to paper. There are a number of variables; the steadiness of the artist's hand, the understanding of the subject's character and contours, the medium, the tools. It makes the artist truly appreciate the intricacies of the human body.

During the classical era of Church architecture, the architects used the human body as the basis for their buildings because the human body is known as having the "Golden Ratio" or the most perfect form. This form is made in the image and likeness of God.

The last point in regards to beauty for this post is the message from today's readings; forgiveness. Another thing that is hard for human beings to understand, forgiveness, is not a foreign concept of our Savior. He came to save us, to wash away what we have done. He came to give us forgiveness, to share His mercy. What a beautiful thing!

The Way, the Truth, and the Life cares about us. Truth is beauty. Look for it in your daily lives and you will see that we live an extraordinary existence, not a mundane one.