A World of Beauty

Beauty. How many times a day do we stop and think or say that something is beautiful? How do we know that something is beautiful?

Beauty is a concept that we really can’t put words to. I often find myself trying to explain beauty by just saying that something is beautiful just because it is. But when I really sit and think about why something is beautiful, I think beauty comes from things just being what they were made to be. A flower is beautiful because it is a flower in its fullness. A sunset is beautiful because it is a sunset in its fullness. In other words, if something is living as it was truly made to live, then it is beautiful. But a big part of beauty is relationship, not just the relationship between us and the object, but our relationships with others as humans. This is where beauty is passed onto us.

When I first went to Higuey, Dominican Republic, I was planning on just going and helping others, I didn’t think that I would start a friendship that would change my concept of beauty. I first went to the Dominican Republic during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, a time where I very much felt lost and unsure of what I would want to do with my life. I knew then that I loved art, but I was really unsure of if I could make a career out of it. So I went on this trip worried about my life, but open to the change I needed for it.

Once I arrived in the small village outside of Higuey, I met a man named Lorenzo, who was living in the village we would be working in. Lorenzo happened to not just be a man of faith, but an artist as well. From the moment the two of us met, we hit it off right away, even though our conversations were with my very broken and elementary spanish and his very broken and elementary english. Over the week, we had many conversations about faith and art, and to say that Lorenzo’s faith and work inspired me is an understatement, and seeing how happy his artwork made people in that small village could move mountains. I learned a lot from Loranzo over that week, but the biggest things were to follow my dreams and faith. Lorenzo gave me a new sense of beauty through sharing his gifts and faith with me, things that I carry with me every day.

Beauty doesn’t just come from the creation that is around us, but from the people around us as well, and sometimes it's from the people you would never expect it to be. I never would have guessed that a man in a small village in a third world country would teach me so much about beauty, and we all have a responsibility to share our beauty with others. If we think of the gifts each of us have as a different color, with God having every color and us each having a unique set of colors, then the only way we can get to God, our ultimate beauty, is to share our own gifts but also respect the gifts of others, even when they aren’t perfect. Then our gifts will be able to overcome a darkness inside of us that we couldn’t conquer before.

As a Franciscan, I see myself constantly having to share who I am while encouraging others to do the same as well, to share their beauty with the world. Each of us are unique but part of the greater whole, like a rose window in a church. Each of us alone is beautiful, just like each piece of a rose window is beautiful by itself, but when put together with all of the other beautiful pieces, we create something even more beautiful. That is the world we need to work towards, one where we see ourselves as an important part of the whole, because none of us can do it without the other. When we all put ourselves together, the world will become the truly beautiful place God created it to be.