War and Beauty

Probably the two most opposite words in the English language.

One robs us of humanity, splinters our soul, and divides brothers.
The other fills us up, reminds us of all that is good, and breathes life into our otherwise desperate hearts.

As a creative, these past few weeks have caused me to ask some huge questions, and to confront parts of myself that were shut down.

So much of me was shut down.
So much of me has been shut down for a long time.
And it has taken a war to thaw me.

It has forced me to confront pain that I had ignored, grief that has been unresolved, and beauty that I just wasn’t seeing anymore.

War makes life turn greyscale.
It robs us of the fullness of life.
It shatters our joy and replaces it with despair.

But war cannot destroy beauty.
It may change the landscape.
It may cut it back.
It may soil it, break it, or fracture it.

But it cannot destroy it.

Because beauty is, in essence, what God is.
All beauty was made by him. It is a revelation of a tiny part of him, a small reveal of a larger picture we haven’t yet seen.
It’s a reminder that we will come through this.
We will grow back, we will recover, we will heal.

Brokenness is such a difficult place to sit.
But it’s an important place to sit because it is the place we most deeply confront our inner selves.

When all is fairies and unicorns, we don’t have to look inwards, we can get by just floating on the beauty of the day, and not notice the state of our soul.

It is the ugly, that forces us to do an inventory of our own ugly.

This war has broken me in ways that I don’t remember being broken before.
Possibly because it was a corporate trauma, and not me, on my own, in the corner, falling apart.
It is all of us.
It is personal. For all of us.

It is the extremes that make us grow.
And that is evident in all of history.

There must be beauty to be found.
Because I cannot believe that God has vanished.
If He is here - His beauty must be able to be found.

And therefore, we must be able to feed our souls, find that place of peace, and build ourselves up.

Because beauty exists purely to feed our souls.

So I am determined, to intentionally find the beauty of each day.
Which flies in the face of all that war brings.
But that’s my way of NOT LETTING THEM WIN.

I am determined to create beauty each day.
Whether it’s in something as small as making a bed beautifully, or arranging some flowers in a vase.
Whether it’s styling a coffee table, or writing a song.
Whether it’s creating an atmosphere that encourages my children to be at peace, or lighting a fire on a cold evening…

This is how Beauty wins over war.
This is how we win.