11.17.07

Beauty

Posted in Life at 7:52 pm by Bily Xiao

What beauty there is in the world. The Lord gives me such joy, simply looking around me, sitting here at Central Park of Santa Clara. Such beauty there is in the delicate stance of the geese. They stand in a row, on one foot, cleaning themselves. It is a curious sight from where I am–kneeling and watching but a meter away–to see the occassional and so-human teetering and constant re-balancing through their knees. I thought only people were creatures of such struggle. But even the highly evolved and created animals of our world–put through the rigors of natural selection and despite all its adaptations: they are not perfect. And yet… it is so perfect… There is such an ease and wholesome perfection to the way things are.

I’ve sat at the park pond for a while and have been filled with so many thoughts I regret not having brought my long-untouched journal to write in. It would have felt so peaceful to capture all the precious thoughts God had given me in those moments in my personal life storybook. But I settle now this online blog (also long untouched). And this way there is the benefit of having it be accessible by virtually anyone. If anything I wish I could share the depth of this experience now with everyone. But though it is online, I will try now to write exactly as I think. Not to an audience. That has always felt rather forced. Calling upon unnatural effort.

I’m now at the library. Sitting on the second floor terrace overlooking the park as the sun slowly begins to draw down the bright lights of the sky to a less energetic but beautifully peaceful tone. I wish I could capture all those thoughts before… And I”ll try… but already much is already lost.

And now instead I can’t help but think of something new. How precious each moment is. Time passes and we can’t return. Each person’s experience, even to himself, is something so special that it cannot be fully captured. Thankfully there is much in the beauty and joy that remains and continues to shape my life. After all, the love joy hope and peace from God received is in every way something eternal, as I always tell others. Happiness is situational and external, but Joy is internal and eternal. That’s because joy is from God. Does that not make it external? No. Because if we know God, His spirit lives in us, and does not leave us.

I feel such blesing to be alive. To be alive not only physically but in its fullness. To be truly alive means to live in truth. And that has made all the difference.

I love being at this park. There is such vibrance and energy. There is such life and joy (and now I use these words less strictly). The beating of wings, the quacking and cawing and murmurs of at elast a couple hundred birds. Ducks. Geese. Seagulls? And well.. a few other kinds I wish I knew the name for. There are older couples strolling around the openly spaced 3-fountain center pond. Other couples sitting and lying down on chairs and low mounds of rich grass. They doze, they read, they relax. There are the still younger bunch of little kiddies running around in the jubilant little bodies full of fuel which we now bigger seem to lack. They circle around screaming with their buddies. Some are with their families, altogether enjoying the view and feeding the ducks.

I take it all in.

I love being at parks. It’s too bad this one seems to lack squirrels. Watching squirrels dash about and chasing each other. From stillness to all of life with such jolting power but in each step ending with such remarkable grace. God’s creation is beautiful.

It’s so nice to just sit at a bench. Look up and around. Arms outstretched. And breathe it all in.

The week has been tough. Tougher than almost any other work week I’ve had yet. Well more accurately it’s been long and tiring. But I have seen such obvious blessing from God through it. Though staying until 10:30PM or even midnight, and moreover waking up at 630AM or 7, God has given me more energy, joy, and focus through my days than any other. And it most surely is because I started my days right. It was a time of such grace I spent in the mornings this week (though not every day) waking early and having quiet time outside. Quiet time with God. Reading His word. Reading the book on Prayer by O’Hallesby. And praying. Lots of praying. Lots of enjoyment. Lots of contentment.

And really the word contentment is key. God has been answering my prayer to learn the Art of Being Content day by day (a phrase I picked up from Rebecca Pippert’s book Out of the Salt-Shaker and Into the World).

It is so easy to be happy when there is so much to be happy about. We just need to open our eyes. Get in touch with truth, with beauty, with love, with nature, with God. It is such a beautiful world. And the world is filled with such beautiful people. At one point I found myself catching early on and stopping myself from looking at a girl twice–not wanting to allow a chance for improper thoughts. No. Not when she is of such beauty and value. No. Not because she was pretty (possibly, but I had stopped myself so early I had hardly even processed that yet). But because she has the same beauty and worth as any other girl in this world. I dared not let myself get to a place where I would see her as anything else. Because at this time God has opened my eyes so widely and filled my heart so fully to see the value in each person, perhaps to some small measure in which God sees us. And it makes me smile.

But moments later I find it such a sad thing. Such a sad thing that too many of us in this world do NOT see the beauty in people nor the world altogether. They do NOT know how to be content. They do not see what is truly before them, around them, within them, above them. Their eyes are veiled. Many see a world which fuels their bitterness, or sadness, or anger, or hurt.

Still others live happy lives. Like many of those I have seen today in the park. Enjoying the day alone, with a significant other, or with family. I am glad that they can enjoy.

But the odds are: most of them do not know God. And while happily their lives touch upon the wholesome beauty of truth in many of the attitudes, principles and action they take, there is an entire world of all that is good and makes us smile that is entirely unknown to them. It’s like in the Truman show (with Jim Carrey). Truman lives in a world that is completely real to him, but he had no idea that it was but a incomplete limited representation of the greater world that was really there. (background: Truman was unknowingly born into a life-sized and life-long drama: he completely earnest and personal in every way, but the people and things around him all a fabrication of the movie studio. disclaimer: this is a metaphor of how what we see and feel can be true but incomplete–NOT to say that everything around happy nonChristians’ lives is fake or a joke by God.)

I wish people knew the truth. I wish people would see true beauty. I wish people would know true joy.

I believe it’s all tied together.

Truth is beautiful. Beauty is truth. Seeing it is joy.

To me, God has a large part in it all. After all, he is the utmost representation of all that is positive.

Now if only I could share that with people–and that they would believe it and know it as a truth which comes alive. Perhaps if God continues to fill me as He is doing now–more and more with His love, joy, peace, and hope overflow through me, then it can be possible. Just realized the first three I just listed are the ‘Fruits of the Spirit’ — Gal 5:22-23… no wonder it flows so easily to the tongue.

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