beauty

I was watching Kennedy Center Awards last night. I love this award. It is given for a lifetime achievement in the arts. The president is there, and it is always packed with really high profile stars and politicians.

The episode I watched last night was honouring Paul Simon, Yo Yo Ma, Meryl Streep and Barbara Cook (a famous Broadway singer). So, in case you haven't watched before I will fill you in. The honourees sit in balcony seats with the president and first lady, while their colleagues walk the audience through a montage of their life's work. Even if i don't love their music, dancing or poetry, I can't help but be swept into their story - small beginnings, hard work, dedication, sacrifice, and excellence.

I am an admirer of Yo Yo Ma (cello player). He dominates the classical music world, and yet he has spent the greater portion of the last twenty years merging with all sorts of other genres from folk, to bluegrass, even going mainstream with Bobby McFerrin.

He was a joy to watch as people that he had played with on different projects went through the songs they had played together. He genuinely loves music, whether he is playing it or not. He was captivated by the entire thing. His face shone with joy and pride - i am sure he had mentored many of those musicians along the way.

Then at the end, James Taylor came out, joined together with all of these varied artists and a whole children's choir and sang "Here comes the sun".

That is when I saw it.

Beauty - the overwhelming power of beauty.

They panned the audience and there was Anne Hathaway crying her eyes out - and she was not alone.

It is not like "Here comes the sun" is a downer song - quite the opposite actually. But it had built so beautifully, and we all saw and heard for that moment what Yo Yo Ma hears and sees when he hears music. He, and those who honoured him, brought us into that moment that made all other moments worthwhile.

And I found myself crying too - swept into this moment with them.

All of the hours upon hours of hard work, practice, mundane scales and rehearsals all poured into this moment when the curtain goes up and the audience is invited to come out of their every day lives and welcomed in to another moment when everything seems to be full of magic and possibility.

I had this moment once. Right at the end of my senior recital to get my degree in Classical Voice -in the last 20 minutes of my performance - something happened - four years of teaching and coaching, practicing when i didn't feel like it, and making thousands of mistakes, all culminated into one moment when I understood what my job was. And i understood the transcendence of that moment. I realized then, that what I saw, I could help others see, and how I sang, moved people from paying bills and cleaning house to a beautiful place of story and imagination.

It was beautiful.

Everything about music changed for me that day. I realized that I am not a gift, nor are my talents or abilities. The gift wasn't given so I could feel great about myself. The gift was given to relieve the load that people carry - to take them to a new place and help them find rest from the mundane.

I see it more clearly now than I used to - and I cherish those moments when they happen. When true beauty, the kind that takes your breath away, enters into the grays of life and changes the way we look at things, even if it is only for a moment.

Of course it is not just music. It is reconciliation between estranged family members or friends, it is a moment of pure laughter even when tragedy is hanging dark in the air, it is a soldier coming home and surprising his family. It is simply anything that makes your heart swell with wonder and removes whatever shadow had been lingering there.

It reminds me that our Father makes everything beautiful in its time. We may trudge and plow and think there is no progress being made, but then a beautiful sunset, a flower out of place in a dry field, a deep giggle from a child, and we are refreshed and ready to take one more step.

beauty is the gift He gave us so we would keep going when everything feels lost.

so i pray that we all have a surprise encounter with beauty today - something that brings tears or laughter - just to remind us that life is made to be cherished and that we are not alone.