Beauty in small things [no. 1]

Chopin, how to live, and flowers for a sweltering summer

John Constable, Cloud Study: Stormy Sunset (1821)

Welcome to Beauty in Small Things. I want to look at the things around me, study them with a clear eye, and see the wonder in all of them—I want to realize that the marvels of God are all-pervasive and everywhere.¹

For now, I’m going to focus on beauty in four areas: the beauty of words, the beauty of music, the beauty of art, and the beauty of nature. These things will most likely come from what I’m reading/observing/listening to on my own, as well as with my children in our homeschool. I hope that through this humble series you will be inspired to notice the abundance of beauty in your own life.

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon?

Annie Dillard

It is focusing to ponder our own mortality. I think one could substitute any verb for “write” in that quote and it works. What words would you speak if you were dying? What would you do, where would you travel, who would you visit, if you (or they) were dying? What letters would you write? What would you start doing if you were dying? What would you stop doing? In other words, how would you live?

This Chopin piano concerto is one we have been listening to in our homeschool lately and I think it’s my favorite Chopin piece. The whole concerto is wonderful, but if you want a dose of pure joy, skip ahead to the third movement (at 33:38) and watch Olga Scheps, the pianist, radiating happiness. She is clearly having so much fun, and I love watching her play.

Millet, The Knitting Lesson, 1869 [public domain]

Jean-François Millet is the artist we are currently studying in our homeschool during our morning meetings all together, and I love this painting of a young girl learning how to knit with her mother (or perhaps her aunt). Millet’s paintings of humble peasants were described as “ugly” by some critics during his lifetime, but I appreciate the sense of nobility that he endows his very common subjects with. Perhaps, in choosing to paint the humblest and poorest men and women, he embodies this little series perfectly, saying: “Look. There is beauty here, yes, even here, in the mundane, simple, everyday details of life.”

{from my garden}

This gorgeous globe amaranth (also called gomphrena) bloomed profusely all through our devastatingly hot and dry Texas summer; it thrives in drought & heat and I want to plant ever so many more in my garden. I love that even in the scorching days of summer there are still beautiful blooms to behold. Interestingly, my husband discovered this growing in our front lawn last spring, and instead of pulling it up (what I would have done!) he dug it up gently and planted it by our mailbox, where it is now a colorful bright spot in our landscape. I am so glad he noticed its beauty, and gave it a place to thrive.

What is beautiful in your life right now, today?

1. Danny Gregory, The Creative License (New York: Hyperion, 2006)

We were all meant to be naturalists each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.

Charlotte Mason