The Beauty of a Moment

It seems to me I’ve experienced a lovely sort of grace these past months. It is the grace of joy—that tremendous delight we find in the beauty of life. It’s that sense of stillness that comes from seeing what is. The trees, the sunset, the person beside me, the melody in my head. The world is so beautiful that sometimes I just have to sit still and soak it up. So often in my striving after that which I have not gained, I loose sight of what I already know and see. In those times I despair because I forget that reality is beautiful and enjoyable. I see it as an uphill toil.

Pascal describes the man as being “suspended between to gulfs of the infinite and the void…a mid-point between nothing and everything.” Man is unhappy because he can see the good, but it is just beyond his grasp. This has often been my experience, but grace brings the good closer to my reach. Even when I’ve not yet grasped onto the good, I enjoy it, and I find a deep happiness in my heart. It is the phenomenon of delighting in the good even though I don’t fully know it. Realizing all that I don’t know, but being overwhelmed by all the goodness that is so powerfully apparent right before me. This is indeed a great good, bestowed, I believe, by grace.

A couple evenings ago, there was a moment that gave my an insight into this delight that I’ve been experiencing. I was listening to my brother Austin play the cello and enjoying the richness of each note resounding from the string. Each moment was so full, so beautiful, that I didn’t need to wish for the next moment to come. This, I thought, was the nature of the delight, the joy, the beauty that I’ve been experiencing. It is seeing ‘what is’ and enjoying that, rather than looking towards ‘what is not yet.’ It is the stillness that we have, the peace, in the enjoyment of the beauty of that very moment we are in.

Last semester, I was given the assignment to look at nature for awhile, and see what I learned about God. I spent about an hour lying under a tree, staring up at the leaves waving slightly in the breeze. I had spent so much time striving—striving towards a good end, but none the less, striving. Yet I was determined to be still for an hour and watch. As I lied there in stillness, looking up at the branches and leaves, it struck me that they didn’t strive; they just were, and yet even in their stillness, they were beautiful—every moment. They were glorifying to God by simply being. Being leaves, so calm and so lovely. I could enjoy the beauty of their serenity, and in so doing, be still for a moment. I didn’t have to wait for the next moment to come, because I was enjoying that moment. This is the same experience I find when I look at the clouds in the majestic sunset sky, and when I listened to the notes of Marie Saint-Seans’ Swan streaming from my brother’s cello.

In our human state, we are in constantly pursuing. There is always more truth to seek, more goodness to seek. Although there will always be a greater beauty than that which we have already experienced, beauty is something that we are able to grasp, to be immersed in, to delight in—to whatever extent we experience it. Beauty holds us in the present moment for the sake of sheer delight.

I think this is what art captures. Art depicts beauty, and causes us to delight. Art forms such as paintings, drawings, sculptures, and music capture a moment, cause us to enter into that moment and stay there. This art impresses upon us the grand beauty of a split second, and reminds us that our entire lives are a great sequence of these beautiful seconds. The sentimental impact of this is, perhaps, unspeakable. It is joy and delight and stillness and peace. It captures the soul, and infuses value into every moment of existence.