GIFT AND ACCOMPLISHMENT

GIFT AND ACCOMPLISHMENT

I know that the beauty I aim at in the garden lies hidden within the innate potentiality of the earth and the seeds that the sun and the rain bring to life...

Alas, the garden has taught me that beauty is both gift and accomplishment. As gift, I accept it humbly and without pride, gratefully and not greedily. As gift, beauty comes from above and beyond my poor power to bring it into existence or to experience it. St. Ephrem writes:

Paradise has...clothed itself
in terms that are akin to you;
[but] it is not because it is impoverished
that it has put on your imagery;
rather, your nature is far too weak
to be able
to attain to its greatness,
and its beauties are much diminished
by being depicted in the pale colors
with which you are familiar.
(Hymns on Paradise, 11:7)

Yet Paradise, Ephrem insists, is not so far distant from us that we cannot approach it. Indeed, we draw nearer to it with each and every effort to make our own selves and the world around us beautiful. Beauty in this fallen world is like the sun hidden behind a cloud. Our ruined "eyes" see just the shadow of its brightness. When, however, we are transformed by our love for it, beauty illumines our whole being, much as on Mount Tabor the bright glory of God enveloped Peter, James, and John.

In the Kingdom of heaven, light, life, and beauty are one. Light engenders life in the garden and beauty everywhere. From the Father of Light issues the Spirit, who gives Life and the Only-Begotten, who is Beauty itself. The Three are One God.

Light of Light, very God of very God...
From Whom all things came into being.
(Nicene Creed)


Vigen Guroian
The Fragrance of God, pp 85-87
2006 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, Michigan
050809