Beauty

July 14, 2026

Are you able to see beauty in this time of destruction, performative cruelty, immorality and corruption? I know that that’s a tall ask. For me, this time of despair can be a barrier to finding beauty, sometimes even when it’s directly in front of me.

Christine Valters Paintner says that “despair and beauty dwell together in the same space, not competing, but offering to us the full experience of soulfulness,[1]."

In the times when I’m able to see beauty, especially when I’m despairing, I have found, like Valters Painter says that somehow beauty grounds me. It allows me able go deeper into myself, into that place where I meet the Holy.

Perhaps that’s because beauty, along with truth and goodness, are often understood to be attributes of the Divine, [2], “patches of Godlight,” [3].

While beauty is rarely shown in the news or occasionally on our social media feeds, it can be found all around us. Seeing beauty can be an important spiritual practice, a way marker on the path to receiving Divine love, [4].

Where do you find beauty? My guess is that each of us finds beauty in different ways and places.

Brian McLaren believes that “beauty abounds,” [5] and lists numerous places that he finds beauty including in bold flowers, patterns of light and shadow, shades of tree bark, cooing doves, poetry, cells of resistance, wind whispering in pine trees, hearing peoples’ stories, and so on, [6].

McLaren invites us to savour beauty within because this inward practice can lead us to beautiful outward action, [7]. And I don’t know about you, but I feel that we need beautiful outward action right now to counteract all the ugliness we’re seeing in 2026.

I love the idea that beauty can be found in all places, especially in our ordinary lives, such as [8]:

• During meals and simple human routines.

• In nature, including mountains, trees, water and the stars, [9].

• In the skyline, architecture, and places of human shelter.

• In our own faces and bodies.

• In gatherings of people sharing poetry, prayer, stories, meals, music, and other creative and spiritual activities.

• In photographs and art.

•. In anything and anywhere that seems beautiful to each of us personally.

Today’s spiritual practice invitation is to spend one day seeking and savouring beauty.

During this “beauty-seeking day” when you find something that is beautiful to you, perhaps you might spend 15 seconds contemplating on it, as was outlined in the June 2, 2026 blog, [10].

In this way, your contemplation can enable you to hold onto the beauty, this positive experience of your life. Then it can become something that you can savour later. Your memory of the beauty can become an anchor, long after your time of beholding.

At the end of the day, you may choose to reflect more deeply on your experience by considering the following:

1. How did you feel when you were seeking beauty?

2. How did you feel when you found beauty?

3. Can you put your experience(s) of beauty into words? Art? Dance? Some other way?

4. Were you surprised by anything during your day of seeking beauty?

5. Did you feel a blessing coming from any of the beauty that you encountered? What did that blessing feel like in your body?

May your soul be awakened to the beauty around you. Amen.

1. Christine Valters Paintner, Wonder and Despair, Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living Through Contemplative and Expressive Arts Blog, https://abbeyofthearts.com/blog/2008/06/15/wonder-and-despair/, 2008.

2. Jeffrey Wattles, About, Universal Family, https://universalfamily.org/about/, 2026.

3. Jeffrey Wattles, C.S. Lewis, Peter Kreeft and the Sequence Truth, Goodness and Beauty, Universal Family, https://universalfamily.org/c-s-lewis-peter-kreeft-and-the-sequence-truth-goodness-and-beauty/, January 22, 2015.

4. Ibid.

5. Brian D. McLaren, Life After Doom, Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart, St Martin’s Essentials, New York, NY, 2024, 211-220.

6. Ibid, 213, 218.

7. Ibid, 217.

8. These are from Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., London, UK, 2024, 33-37, Brian D. McLaren, Life After Doom, 217, and me.

9. If you’re interested in finding beauty in the stars more specifically, here’s the link to the January 6, 2026 Stargazing Blog: https://www.vancouverspiritualdirection.com/single-post/stargazing

10. Here’s the link to the 15 second contemplation blog: https://www.vancouverspiritualdirection.com/single-post/15-second-contemplation

This blog is dedicated to the memory of Maureen Fowler, a beloved spiritual mentor.