The Unattended Moment

(From my nature journal)

"For most of us, there is only the unattended

Moment, the moment in and out of time.

The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,

The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning

Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply

That it is not heard at all, but you are the music

While the music lasts.  These are only hints and guesses,

Hints followed by guesses;  and the rest

Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.

The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation."

                                       ---from The Dry Savage   

                    T. S. Eliot

We've all experienced transcendent moments that cause something to well up within us and wish to express or capture the moment...to possess it, if one could.  But alas!  These moments escape us, like air drifting through our fingers.  One way to come close to capturing those moments is to somehow find expression of them in art....whether by painting, writing, poetry, dance, sculpture.  The author Willa Cather describes this to a young artist friend:

"Art is but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining and elusive element which is life itself---life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose."

Beauty engages us, it attracts us, it causes us to want to respond to it.  Beauty is a necessity!  It takes us to the "beyondness" of things to something grander and greater. Beauty takes our breath away.  Beauty takes us to the Maker of beauty....our great Creator God.  King David expressed in Psalm 27 that he had one strong, compelling desire...and that was to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.  All that we see and experience of beauty in this fallen world is but an echo, a whisper of what is to come. Beauty, joy, delight....these are essentials to our human flourishing!  I hope you experience these qualities in many unattended moments in your life.

"To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour."

---Auguries of Innocence

William Blake

Live bravely and beautifully!