Posted by Helen on: 07.17.2006 /
Hi everyone!
Eliza, Julie Marie and Todd, thanks so much for taking care of the blog last week while I was on vacation. I really appreciate it!
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I had a fun time on vacation. We were staying in Door County, Wisconsin, which is a peninsula out into Lake Michigan a few hours drive north of Chicago. The county is mostly small farms away from the lakeshore. The lakeshore is lined with trees, except where the trees give way to small towns with marinas. The towns are quaint but I liked the forested lakeshore between the towns best. |
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| We were staying in a rented cottage among trees right on the lakeshore. We watched the sun set over the lake every evening. The cottage was on private property — it was very secluded. We saw deer and wild turkey in the woods near the cottage. As the week went by the lake constantly changed colors and moods. On the unsettled days it was deep grey with waves. On the clear days it was calm and still — deep blue in the middle of the day and pale blue with hints of pink and orange at the beginning and end of the day. |  |
I’ll post some photos on my personal website…soon…
While I was there enjoying the lake and the trees, I was thinking about beauty — the beauty of the world around us, in particular.
I have another couple of questions which are somewhat related. I posted them on the eBay atheist blog.
Comment by: Bob
1I definitely think some folks appreciate beauty more than others. Appreciating beauty, especially in nature, takes time. You have to actually look up from your busy-ness and take the time to drink it in. Lots of us do this when we are on vacation (to a particularly beautiful spot) but few of us appreciate the beauty found on our daily commutes.
Slowing down and drinking in the beauty that surrounds is a skill that needs to be practiced.
Comment by: Julie Marie
2Appreciating nature does take exposure and time. My appreciation was born way before my Christian life was born, and I don’t notice any difference between then and now. What I do notice is that my appreciation of nature tends to fill me with a profound thankfulness to the Creator now. And that thankfulness is a powerful motivator to bring out the best that is in me.
Comment by: Julie marie
3ps I think the wonder of nature, and the power of appreciation there is that it involves all of our senses. I can appreciate an idea…but I can feel the power of the ocean and the joyous thrill of a wave perfectly caught. I hear the rhythm of the surf as it hits the shore. I can see the dolphins playing in the wakes of the container ships moving up the harbor, and I can taste…well, salt water doesn’t taste all that good…I can taste the cold beer that awaits me when I’m done playing!
Comment by: jeff
4I think that people who feel lost in this world are unlikely to be persuaded by the “Can’t you see God in his beautiful creation” arguement. In desperation their response often is “What beauty? All I see is pain and abuse and divorce and cancer…” You know the world can be an ugly, scary place sometimes especially if one doesn’t have answers, support and God. This problem seems more pronounced in our concrete cities.
Comment by: Eliza
5These are beautiful photos, Helen! What a wonderful place to go for vacation.
I think we all find/see beauty, but there is some “beholder’s eye” effect. The best of nature (peaceful, colorful, grand) seems to be a nice eyeful for many beholders, but there are people who don’t seem to find it all that beautiful (my mom, for one - she’d rather be in a city, and be able to shop ;) ). Agreed it does require us to have the peace of mind to be able to appreciate the beauty - someone who is frantic for some reason will probably not be able to appreciate a scene that everyone else finds awesome.
“The beauty of nature” does not link with “God” in my mind, & the “beautiful creation” argument falls flat for me. (As an aside, I find it interesting that the Bible has so little description of “the beauty of creation”, at least as we seem to refer to it these days.)
Closer for me would be the “power of nature” - I look at something huge and ominous, like a thunderstorm filling the sky, and can see how people would have thought this was the god/s getting angry. Volcanoes, hurricanes (remember seeing pictures of Katrina in the gulf?), a huge tsunami - these are reminders of how powerless we humans are, and how much power can be “called up” by forces so much greater than us. It’s just that for me those forces are natural - plate tectonics, or the interactions between the flows of wind, water, and heat on the globe.
Are people who find God necessarily finding beauty at the same time? I can see finding peace of mind, security, and hope…but I don’t see how one’s religious beliefs affect whether or not one sees beauty, just what/who gets the credit for that beauty, or at least for the beauty of nature.
Comment by: NCxian
6I saw a beautiful thing this evening. I was standing over my sink and looked out onto my front porch and there was a grey fox asleep on the rug on the porch! I live in a city and I know that his being there had something to do with our encroachment on his habitat. But, boy, he was a looker!
Did I think of God? Not in any conscious way. But I have a “God-in-everything” notion of God, so when I did get around to thinking about God, it was in a “boy, is he a looker” sort of way.
Comment by: Helen M.
7NCxian, I’m glad you saw that beautiful grey fox.
I think I might have one of those notions of God also.
I like it much better than when I felt like every time I saw something beautiful I was supposed to thank God for it, and if I forgot I had fallen short and let God down.
(I do realize that part of the problem was my own perfectionism)
Comment by: Helen M.
8Eliza wrote:
Thanks, Eliza! Yes, it definitely was wonderful. :)
Comment by: Doreen
9Wow, Helen, nice place! Next week I’ll be in a cottage on the Maine coast and your photos made today at work go much faster.
Most definitely. Until the age of 28, I suffered with undiagnosed recurrent major depressive episodes. (Well actually I didn’t get that diagnosis until I was 33, but that’s another story.)
After I got treatment (and stopped drinking & drugging), I was in awe at how beautiful the fall leaves were. I still am.
I think if you’ve gotten to the edge and not been pushed, not jumped, or not fallen in, you learn to appreciate the things that others may take for granted.
I am thankful that I live in a world that has much beauty. I am so sad for those who don’t, particularly those in the middle east.
Comment by: Helen M.
10Thanks Doreen - I’m glad the photos helped! I hope where you are in Maine is very beautiful. We were in Maine for a few days last summer, which was our first time in that state. We enjoyed it very much.
I can relate to what you shared about learning to appreciate what others take for granted. I wouldn’t wish suffering on anyone but it is neat how, if we make it to the other side, we find we’ve learned how to appreciate the gift of not-suffering. Which could include being able to appreciate beauty again, or various other things.
I guess I hadn’t thought about how some parts of the world are more beautiful than others - good point.