Article voiceover
The beauty we let in through eyes through skin through nose and mouth and heart and ears is dissolving like far away glaciers in a warming world like the bugs and beetles and crawling things we've forgotten Nothing subtle makes the cut Nothing that doesn’t announce itself loudly In a rattling world Beauty has to rattle I am in love with the show off pink of bougainvillea but lichen opens a cage somewhere deep We are so afraid of being small of everything beatific and lonely but then grace descends on hearts that are broken not loud and death is still inevitable A tender voice is the sweetest revolution so steady and constant so Un-requiring of notice or stage that it can love you unrelenting in your chaos in the berserk you swallow to survive every morning Clouds can’t be caged of course and grace when allowed will settle under your feet and bring you to kneel before the overlooked the stray to the quiet congregations of ancient beauty It’s the lichen I walk among with new feet every day grey and curled and miraculously unseen it’s the lichen that’s changing this lonely world The smallness of it breaking my heart Questions for meditation: Can you intentionally expand your ideas about beauty? What would it change for you to actively search for it in all things, in all ways, even in the understated and overlooked? A prayer using words: God of everything Small, Humble, and Soft, bring me to the grace of seeking the unseen, the forgotten, the quiet congregation of beauty, every day, in every situation. Amen.