Beauty and Wonder

“Beauty demands to be noticed; it speaks to us directly like the voice of an intimate friend. If there are people who are indifferent to beauty then it is surely because they do not perceive it.” ~Roger Scruton, Beauty

Beauty is easy to miss these days. It’s so much easier to see only the lingering landscape of death. It’s particularly easy to see all that has been wrought by winter’s hand. What’s the point in going out into the garden this time of year, I wondered? Especially as the winter wind has been both intolerable and constant, I am easily dissuaded from spending anytime outdoors.

Indoors much of the winter, I found myself looking more at my phone, reading news more than the colors of the sky and the nuances and wonders of life preparing to be resurrected underground. I fail regularly as a proper witness to the slow work, the churning beneath the surface.

This is why, when I discovered last year the Lenten Rose, Helleborus Orientalis in Latin, I sensed this was something that might remind me, in the nick of time, what hope looks like. I couldn’t have imagined just how much I’d need this glimmer of beauty this year.

I peeled back a cluster of dried leaves, and there they were underneath: pink and white and delicate and very much alive. The wonder and joy that this beauty brought me gave me a shot of buoyancy. I remembered then a truth—I have a responsibility to notice this not only for myself but for the world around me. How else can I love anything or anyone if I am steeped only in chaos, anger, and anxiety? What am I even living for?