"How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful!" - Song of Solomon 4:1

Sometimes the little girl in me still tugs wistfully at the things I wish I could change about myself, but today I found this magazine excerpt taped in an old journal and I was reminded that, underneath the gaudy definition of beauty that the world has tried to pin on me, my Father's original intention for what beautiful means is written into my heart's deepest layer.

"I'm learning an interesting concept, though. In reality, anyone can be pretty. Before and after photos aren't hard to achieve. On the other hand, I'm convinced that there are only a few truly beautiful women in the world. I want to be one of those. Sure they care about their appearance, but they're more concerned with living an amazing life. They naturally make people feel at ease. They have the kind of personality that draws people in, that isn't rude. They can be confident without being cocky. They're cool with doing their own thing - whether it's marching in the band, collecting rocks from cool places, going to concerts, working on their three-pointers or treating every customer on the other side of the counter like he or she is important. They know how to dress and that modesty and chic can indeed go hand in hand. They're not obsessed with their jean size.

They're all about denying themselves and serving other people, whether they're playing with kids in a tribe along the Amazon River or going out of their way at church to talk to someone new. They dig into God's Word. They don't just tote their Bible around for fun; they use it. They memorize it. They go to it for answers.

Ultimately, beautiful girls know how loved they are by God and that gives them the kind of joy and security that shows. Beautiful girls rise above the fake, plastic kind of pretty our world is obsessed with, and they choose something far more wonderful and mysterious: a heart like Jesus'.

Pretty girls come and go. Beautiful girls leave a legacy. God calls us beautiful. Let's believe what He says."

About Rich's work, the poet W.S. Merwin has said, "All her life she has been in love with the hope of telling utter truth, and her command of language from the first has been startlingly powerful."


November 1968

Stripped
you're beginning to float free
up through the smoke of brushfires
and incinerators
the unleafed branches won't hold you
nor the radar aerials

You're what the autumn knew would happen
after the last collapse
of primary color
once the last absolutes were torn to pieces
you could begin

How you broke open, what sheathed you
until this moment
I know nothing about it
my ignorance of you amazes me
now that I watch you
starting to give yourself away
to the wind

-Adrienne Rich

“Richard, do you ever think about luxury?” she asked him.
“I don’t crave it, if that’s what you mean.”
“Luxury, I think, is the total fulfillment of all five senses at once. Luxury is now. I feel warm; and, if I wish, I can reach out and touch your hand. I smell the sea and, as well, somebody inside the hotel is frying onions. Delicious. I am tasting cold beer, and I can hear gulls, and water lapping, and the fishing boat’s engine going chug-chug-chug in the most satisfactory sort of way.”
“And what do you see?”
She turned her head to look at him, sitting there with his hair ruffled, and wearing his old sweater, and the leather patched Harris tweed jacket that smelt of peat. “I see you.” He smiled.
“Now it’s your turn. Tell me your luxury.”


I was going to compose beautiful (I hoped) lines about poetry and coffee and warmth, but when it comes down to it, Jesus is my one luxury. He alone gives purpose to my life. I do so love those other things, but they pale in comparison. Here’s everything I have, my Love, because You are the richest of fare.


Look, the sea has not fallen and broken
Our heads. How can I feel so warm
Here in the dead center of January? I can
Scarcely believe it, and yet I have to, this is
The only life I have. I get up from the stone.
My body mumbles something unseemly
And follows me. Now we are all sitting here strangely
On top of sunlight.

- James Wright


Found this in a journal entry from my days in Barcelona:
“EFFING CATALAN. That language is out to ruin my life.”

A Day in Autumn

By R.S. Thomas

It will not always be like this,

The air windless, a few last

Leaves adding their decoration

To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs

Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening

In the lawn’s mirror. Having looked up

From the day’s chores, pause a minute,

Let the mind take its photograph

Of the bright scene, something to wear

Against the heart in the long cold.

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I am now in the habit of paying 50 cents each morning for a copy of the North County Times somewhere along the (ghetto) streets of Vista on my way to work. Today I flagged down a middle aged hispanic guy with kind eyes and a soft smile. In exchanging how-are-you-this-morning's, he responded with such sweet sincerity, "I'm blessed." And I was so caught off guard, because unlike the "I'm great" I responded with, his words are the kind that cannot be said casually. I imagine that they can only come from the deepest part of the heart, which (I could not think of a more poetic way to say this) made me feel like shit because I am so overwhelmingly blessed, and yet I can rarely bring myself to utter those words.

“No child on earth was ever meant to be ordinary, and you can see it in them, and they know it, too, but then the times get to them, and they wear out their brains learning what folks expect, and spend their strength trying to rise over those same folks.” - Annie Dillard