Foolishly Beautiful

Billy Collins recently came to do a poetry reading at our college campus. I loved his poems because they are so wonderfully simple. They delight the reader's imagination and yet at the same time our journey never leaves the living room or kitchen. His last poem that he read that night concludes, "We are all so foolish, my long bebop solo begins by saying, so damn foolish ,we have become beautiful without even knowing it." I am now listening to Please Forgive me by David Gray. The lyrics go, "Please forgive me if I act a little strange, for I know not what I do, feels like lightning running through my veins everytime I look at you. " I am always amazed when artists speak directly to my soul through their requisite medium. I am always surprised that they could be so effective at touching my heart so succintly even though we have never met. Whether it is an arresting line of poetry, beautiful love ballad, a painting rich in color, or a sculpture that is ready to walk off its podium and delight the world with its beauty and wisdom they all are amazing and worthy of praise and honor.

This idea of foolish beauty grabs my senses in a particularly profound manner because it is what my heart has been feeling now for many weeks. We are all so foolish (if you don't believe it come and view the college atmosphere on any given weekend) and yet we are all so beautiful. Even our very existence, a tremendous gift, is beauty. What if we all saw the world the way some artists do, the beauty in every line, in every movement, in every breath taken.

My favorite sermon I have ever heard was from JR Briggs regarding Vincent Van Gogh. JR explained that Van Gogh's life was filled with much sorrow and depression and yet in the times of his life that were light and joyful his paintings overflow with the color yellow. Even Starry Night, in all of its inky darkness the yellow shines through to capture the moment and illuminate the dark night in all of its splendor. I am not sure what caused Van Gogh to reach for his yellow paint brush at certain times and to cast it aside at others, but what I do understand is that we all must have something in our lives that causes the yellow to spring forth from ourselves.