more about beauty

beauty.....

• There is a lot of beauty in the poem below written by Chelsea Reimer at the recent Silent Retreat I was leading  in November.  As she read her poetry out loud to us on the last day of the retreat, I was struck by her words and images.   Our culture runs away from sadness, from death, from waiting, from emptiness.  and in these words, she is inviting us to see the beauty in these very things.  And to perhaps not only 'see' the beauty but to rest in it.  To rest in our sadness, to rest in our waiting.  To embrace the dark shadowed parts of our lives as much as the light filled pockets.  And in doing so, we embrace the full picture of being human.                                                                                                  
  
  A Beauty.
  
  There is a beauty in sadness,
  A soft exhaling breath
  of something felt so deeply
  and as quietly as death.
  
  There is a beauty in waiting
  for joy to wander back,
  and watching as the day grows dim
  from yellow tones to black.
  
  There is a beauty in feeling
  what all creation knows,
  in letting life have ups and downs
  and walking through its woes.
  
  There is a beauty in knowing
  that night is just a hue,
  and that in depths of sadness
  my heart can rest in you.
  
  by Chelsea Reimer
  November, 2011