Slowing Down for Beauty

When you think of beauty, what pops in your mind?

Maybe a flawless face, a certain piece of music, a rose. Beauty can be seen in many different ways and different people appreciate different applications of beauty. But all beauty is appreciated more with time and attention.

When we see something beautiful we want to stop and consider it, look closer. It’s sometimes difficult to put into words why something strikes us. Other times we immediately put our finger on why we call it beautiful. But to fully savor the thing or moment or experience, we have to slow down and give our attention.

The reality of this fully took form when Tommy and I went to Paris last year. We were able to experience amazing food, incredible historical sites, and surround ourselves in completely new things at every turn. One of the top things on my list of “want to dos” when we were planning our trip was to visit Musee de l’Orangerie {Orangery Museum} where the famous Waterlily paintings by Monet are.

I don’t know exactly when I started loving them, but Impressionist paintings are my favorite style and Paris museums are filled with Monet, Degas, Renoir, and a host of others. But l’Orangerie is especially magnificent because Monet himself worked on the plan to renovate the building, planning how his studies of the waterlilies from his garden pond would look on display. The panels are over two yards tall and when put together are almost 100 yards wide. Stretching in ovals around two rooms, there really is nothing like it.

The immensity of the paintings hits you, especially when you’ve only seen them in books. While the paintings weren’t the tallest or the most detailed paintings we saw, the scale of them arching around the room, the calming colors set off by stark white walls, and the quiet as visitors took them in was beautiful.

But while Tommy and I stood in the middle of the room and I attempted to etch every color and detail into my memory, other tourists were there for an entirely different reason. They stood at the painting, back toward the masterpiece, and smiled for a friend to capture the moment on camera. Picture secure, they headed to the next room, some of them spending less than a minute before Monet’s 30 years of work.

Can you appreciate the beauty of the thing and the experience in such a blink? You certainly can’t capture the whole painting or the feeling in a snapshot. These were not beauty seekers. They were focused on the adage, “If I have a picture of it, it happened.” Or maybe, “If I post it on social media, it happened.” We saw similar tourists at Versailles, the Louvre, even restaurants. So absorbed in their phones, their pictures, their posts that they didn’t care about what surrounded them.

What a waste of beauty! Maybe you believe they took those photos and look at them and reflect on what they saw now, months after the trip. But I doubt it. If you can’t appreciate beauty when you are in the moment, will you ever have time to look back? And it won’t be the same.

Sunsets are my favorite. I love the splash of color that is ever changing. No two sunsets are the same; the temperature, the air quality, the position of the sun makes each one a unique painting from God. And try as I might, a picture of a spectacular sunset is never the same as watching it happen in real time. Same with rainbows. Pictures never seem to capture the colors, the expanse, the shimmer of a rainbow. To fully enjoy them, we must slow down and look right then! So it is with all beauty.

Our society seems to be based on a breakneck pace. Do more, faster! Be more productive in less time! These types of attitudes don’t go well with savoring experiences, looking for beauty, and enjoying what’s in front of you. The thought something better is just after this moment keeps us from finding contentment where we are and slowing down. We think if we slow down we’ll miss something but the truth is, in our race to the next thing, we’re missing hundreds of beautiful things and moments.

Don’t stand with your back to the masterpiece and rush to the next photo op. Look around, enjoy the moment now, while it’s here, and you might be surprised that you can find beauty in so many things.

Photo by Richard Hedrick on Unsplash

The Wonder of Creation

One of our favorite family activities is watching nature documentaries. Our kids have always loved animals and animal facts, and it’s relaxing to see creatures and landscapes from all over the world.

The BBC’s series “Planet Earth” and “Blue Planet” are some of our favorites. While there are mentions of evolution and global warming, our kids can spot those lies a mile away! From the beginning of reading library books about dinosaurs and watching Wild Kratts, every time millions of years, big bang, evolving, etc. was mentioned, we stopped and walked our toddlers and elementary kids through the truth of the Bible and the falseness of evolution theory. Now, we can watch those programs and they will usually point out the errors before we have a chance!

But the reason we put so much thought and effort into still watching programs that have evolution is to show our kids how amazing creation is and to talk through the incredible attributes of God. I want to highlight a few animals that we learned about from the recent “Planet Earth III” documentary.

The pearl octopus lives deep in the ocean. To keep their eggs warm enough to grow and hatch, they travel to hydrothermal vents where water temperatures can be ten degrees warmer. After laying her eggs, the mother stays with them as a layer of extra warmth and protection. She doesn’t leave, even to eat. When the eggs finally hatch {almost two years later!} and the babies swim away from the vents, the mothers die. They give everything for the survival of their young. Here’s an interesting short clip about this octopus.

One of the animals that had us laughing and marveling was the archer fish. This incredible creation shoots insects off leaves by accurately measuring the distance, accounting for distortion in the water reflection, and spitting water in a perfect stream at the insect! It really is fascinating to watch!

The final animal I’ll mention is the lily trotter, or African Jacanas. These birds seem to run on the surface of the water but their large feet are actually spread across lily pads. What struck us about this bird is shown at the end of this video. To protect the chicks, the father lily trotter tucks them into his wings and carries them to safety. What a beautiful picture of how God cares for us! He doesn’t leave us when we need him or expect us to figure out trials on our own. He lovingly shields us.

Creation is a wonder filled place. As we watched “Planet Earth III” and heard about animals new to us or places just now being discovered, I dwelt on the thought that God knew all along. That creature, that place has been there all along. Even when we didn’t realize it, God was getting the glory for creation that only he saw.

Take this as encouragement to explore creation with your kids. Watch documentaries. Read books. But always point them to the Creator.

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

What I've Learned about Creativity

If you asked me ten years ago if I was creative, I would have said no.

To me, creativity meant artistic talent, original ideas, perfection in making things. And I didn’t feel any of those applied to me. I considered myself imaginative. I wrote stories, had conversations with myself, could look at something and see it a different way. But creativity and imagination weren’t the same thing, at least I didn’t think so.

My journey of creativity began as a child. I loved to color, but not draw. Stick figures were my go-to and when I attempted something else, the proportions were always off. I remember watching Bob Ross on Saturday mornings — I even got out paper, paint, and brushes — and becoming more convinced I lacked creativity because my trees never looked happy; they were blobs of green with streaks of brown for a trunk.

I loved to read and write stories so I took that to mean my only form of creative expression was words. I majored in journalism, continued to write, read stacks of books, and journaled and made lists about everything. Free time in my college and early married years continued to be focused on books and writing. Then I went to a ladies church activity where we made jewelry with beads and wire and fancy clips. I bought some supplies at Hobby Lobby and made an assortment of earrings and necklaces, but it didn’t seem creative to me. I was just following someone else’s pattern and idea.

When my daughter was about two, my crafting adventures really took off. She loved all things cutting, pasting, coloring. When my mom would visit, they would sit and watch Pinterest tutorials and create a dozen different animals with paper plates, suncatchers from tissue paper, paper chain snakes, and colorful cards. My daughter’s skills increased with age and soon, she could figure out how to make just about anything she thought up, no instructions needed. 3D flower arrangements, ballerinas that twirled, her own puzzles; I was blown away by her creativity and ability to make her designs a reality.

But it also forced me to think about what creativity means. Even though she was gifted at visualizing how to put something together, she still had to learn to hold scissors, she had to try and crumple and start again. And sometimes she was copying an idea or pattern, but it never looked exactly like the example. Her own take on it was always present.

Around the time my son was entering the craft age, I read “Life Creative: Inspiration for Today’s Renaissance Mom.” I’ll admit, I felt like anything BUT a Renaissance mom. I was spending my time on laundry, feeding my family, trying to keep the house clean, learning how to homeschool a kindergartener with a toddler who wouldn’t let me out of sight. I barely managed my favorite pastimes — reading and writing — let alone the variety of pursuits I attributed to a “Renaissance Woman.” However, even though I loved being a mom, I enjoyed being with my kids and watching them learn, I still found in myself a desire to learn something new. And that’s what drew me to the book.

The authors talked about balance, how we create in different ways, the importance of our kids seeing us try…and fail…and try again. So much of it resonated with me. So I decided to step out and try things I’d written off as having no talent for. My daughter and I made cards with scrapbook paper, baked together, tried oil pastel crayons. Some things we tried once and decided to move on but other endeavors we kept coming back to.

That leads us to 2020…the year of infamy. With all our plans and schedules scratched out, the future a question mark, I had trouble concentrating. I wrote in my journal and read but my mind was always wandering. With spring flowers blooming, I found myself drawn toward anything of beauty. I randomly stumbled on a YouTube channel with simple flower doodles. Even with my limit stick figure drawing skills, these flowers looked doable. So I tried and kept watching. The channel included introductions to loose watercolors and that seemed doable too. I ordered the cheapest supplies and started.

I was amazed how relaxing it was! Watching water and color pool and move across the page. I needed practice but I enjoyed every bit of the process, even when my flowers all looked the same. I searched for other beginner watercolor sites, watched videos on color mixing, blending, brush types and holds. I wrote out Bible verses and framed them in watercolor vines and leaves and rosebuds.

My kids watched along and joined in. I wondered what other things I might enjoy that I had never taken the time for, assuming they were too hard for me, that I wasn’t talented enough, that I would be wasting my time trying. I set up a game table in the basement and pulled out a puzzle. Last spring, Tommy cut a section of our background grass out and I filled it with flower seeds, hesitant because I knew nothing about gardening but drawn to the appeal of nature and beauty and outdoors.

Now, I want to say there is such a thing as natural talent. No amount of practicing my violin will turn me into Hilary Hahn. However, unlike how I used to think, you don’t have to master something or be perfect at it to be creative or enjoy the learning process. Part of creativity is experimenting, trying something just to see how it turns out, learning what is fun and relaxing and enjoyable.

I have loved the process of creativity for myself! I feel no pressure to master a certain skill; I just learn and enjoy the process. When people used to ask what my hobbies were, I would say reading. Which, don’t get me wrong, I still love to read. But now I also like to watercolor, doodle, garden {flowers, not vegetables}, work puzzles. I have friends who make amazing crafts and decor, who knit and crochet, bake bread and sweets. My daughter loves origami and drawing and sewing. So many creative outlets!

My husband has been talking about the creation account with our kids during family devotions, and I love to think about how creative God is, to give us the plant, animal, and geographic variety that surrounds us. He made such beauty and diversity, all with a word. When we display our small attempts at making, we are mirroring our Creator. We are acknowledging the design and purpose he has given everything. Out of all the things he created, humans are the only ones capable of creating close to the same way. No, we can’t make something physically appear just by speaking. But we can imagine a project or item or idea and set about forming it, using clay, wool, paper, words. Creating something for our enjoyment and the enjoyment of others.

Now if you ask me if I’m creative, I would say yes. I’m not perfect at any one thing, I haven’t mastered any of my hobbies. But honestly, is that even the point? I’m here to encourage you to pick up a paintbrush, grab some embroidery floss, sharpen a pencil, or buy that French pastry cookbook. Maybe it’ll look more like a Pinterest fail the first few attempts. But find something you love, something that forces you to slow down, and simply try. Creativity is part of everyone, just in different ways.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash