{"id":6380,"date":"2012-03-20T19:26:50","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T00:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kathyschiffer\/?p=6380"},"modified":"2016-09-30T16:00:09","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T21:00:09","slug":"the-wound-of-beauty-its-never-quite-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kathyschiffer\/2012\/03\/the-wound-of-beauty-its-never-quite-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wound of Beauty: It\u2019s Never Quite Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you\u2019ve got it, you want\u2013oh, you don\u2019t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mark Twain<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s never just happiness and smiles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here it is, a glorious Springtime in Michigan.<\/strong> The first flowers are bursting forth, frothing explosions of yellow and purple and white gussying up the brown earth, not unlike stars which splash exuberant wonder across the night sky.\u00a0 Everywhere there is great beauty and mystery and hope.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And sorrow.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I am always surprised by my bifurcated happy-sad reaction<\/strong> to the first green leaves, the first dancing daffodils.\u00a0 I\u2019m not even sure where my melancholy comes from.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s this:<\/strong> I love nature, love the peeping frogs, their thin voices blending into a cacophony of rubber tones in the pond beside the office.\u00a0 I love the gnarled tree and the puffball mushroom that pushes through the wet mud under a decaying log in the yard.\u00a0 But these things are not enough.\u00a0 Vapid caricatures of themselves, they\u2019re like worn photographs of a still greater beauty\u2014a beauty that will last more than a day.<\/p>\n

Perhaps my malaise is the result of increasing years,<\/strong> when the passage of time is sensed more keenly.\u00a0 Not to be morose, but Spring is a reminder of Summer, which is a harbinger of Fall\u2026.\u00a0 These lovely things\u2014baby birds that wait, gape-mouthed, for a tasty morsel; dappled fawns that nurse at the nipple of the patient doe; crocuses that smile for just a day, before becoming lunch for a rabbit\u2014all of these delicate things begin to die as soon as they are born.<\/p>\n

St. Thomas Aquinas, writing in the Summa Theologica<\/em>,<\/strong> calls beauty \u201ca kind of knowledge.\u201d\u00a0 He evaluates the world in terms of three characteristics:\u00a0 wholeness, balance and radiance.\u00a0 To the extent that a thing possesses these three conditions, it is beautiful.<\/p>\n

So beauty is fleeting.<\/strong> Flowers fade, mushrooms release their spores and return to the earth.\u00a0 Soft skin wrinkles in the sun.\u00a0 Flowers die quickly in the vase, almost as quickly in the garden.\u00a0 And after having survived a few seasons, remembering the hurt of both small and profound losses, one finds detachment preferable to pain.<\/p>\n

Only God is unchanging,<\/strong> and it is toward His ineffable beauty that all these things point.\u00a0 In the words of St. Augustine, \u201cThou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless \u2018til they find rest in Thee.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you\u2019ve got it, you want\u2013oh, you don\u2019t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!\u201d \u2014 Mark Twain It\u2019s never just happiness and smiles. Here it is, a glorious Springtime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beauty"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Wound of Beauty: It\u2019s Never Quite Enough<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. 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