God And Beauty -- If No One Sees It, Is It Really There?

White blossoms of a wild flowering fruit tree in San Francisco Bay Area. Photo by Barbara Newhall — A wild tangle of blossoms and twigs — I had only a few minutes time to spend with all this beauty. My feet were getting wet and there was work to do back in my writing room. *Photo by Barbara Newhall*

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

It was February, early spring in California, when I spotted a wild fruit tree – an apple? a plum? – blossoming in the canyon below our house. Was it really a flowering tree down there in that steep, dry, unlikely place? Was I seeing things?

I’d never noticed a tree in that spot before. It was barely visible from our house, surrounded on all sides as it was by more predictable trees: A rangy bay laurel and its offspring. A couple of young and aggressive live oaks. An aging Monterey pine. An anonymous shrub with red berries that I had never much liked.

I got up from my desk and went outdoors to get a better look at the cloudy white tree, only to lose sight of it entirely from the vantage point of our back door. It’s probably a beautiful thing, I thought, if only I could get a good look at it. What a waste. All that splendor hidden away with no one to pay homage to it.

Later in the week I decided to make my way down the hill and appreciate that tree up close. Take a picture. Record the poignant, fleeting lives of those white blossoms. I put on my hiking boots and a pair of old, expendable pants, grabbed our camera, and made the steep downhill journey through mud, blackberry, sourgrass, and a rotting tree stump.

When I finally reached the hidden tree, I saw that it was a tangled mass of limbs, branches and twigs, many of them dead. It’s clear that no gardener prunes or tends

A flowering tree is hidden behind oak trees and bay laurels on an empty lot in Northern California in February. Photo by Barbara Newhall — Thousands and thousands of blossom hidden from view. Photo by Barbara Newhall

this tree. It’s on its own. And this season, without human help, it has produced thousands and thousands of small white flowers, each one quietly surging with life and – it seemed to me – intention.

I snapped my pictures, but I did not linger under the tree. I couldn’t get much of a foothold on the muddy hillside and my feet were getting wet. Also, I needed to get back to my writing room. I had work to do.

A Meyer lemon tree? A plum? The result of a chewed apple core I threw down the canyon from our deck years ago?

Picking my way back up the slippery hillside, I felt satisfied that this patch of beauty had not gone unappreciated. I had personally given it its full fifteen minutes of fame. Back at the house I kicked off my muddy boots and thought of the proverbial tree falling in the woods. If no one hears it crash, does it make a sound?

And if no one can see this small tree bloom, is it beautiful? What if I hadn’t been here to take note – and a snapshot? Could that cloud of white blossoms have been beautiful without me? Without a beholder, is there beauty?

Maybe God is like that tree, hidden and beautiful whether I show up with my camera or not.

A version of this essay first appeared on www.BarbaraFalconerNewhall.com, where Barbara Falconer Newhall riffs on life, family, books, writing, and her rocky spiritual journey. Her interfaith book, Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith will be released this season by Patheos Press.

God and Beauty — If No One Sees It, Is It Really There?