Have you ever wondered why there are thousands of types of flowers and birds?
Or why tree leaves change through the seasons?
Or why food tastes so good?
It’s because beauty surrounds us, that God made to fill the world. He didn’t have to make the world an interesting or attractive place. He didn’t have to allow the ocean to be blue and white and shiny, or the sky to change with the sun, or the mountains to be rich with color. God chose to show forth His goodness through the beauty of the world He created for us.
And things can be beautiful, just for the sake of beauty.
My husband understands this better than most. As an architect, he has the privilege of helping paint the world we live in. He gets to participate in the design of buildings people will see from the street, work in, and learn in. He helps create the city around us. And he tries to make it beautiful.
As we went through college, I attended every one of his final project reviews. At these, he would present his semester project to a board of professors. It was always an elaborate design for a building or structure, like a bridge. Every single time, I watched him present something beautiful and unique: a bridge with huge arches, a recreation center with the Colosseum as a precedent, a cylindrical office building with 360-degree views of the surrounding area.
So often, the trained architects criticized his “unnecessary designs.” They asked why he would design something so complicated, so unordinary, so different. But I fell in love with him over and over again watching him explain how he wanted to bring the natural beauty of the landscape into his buildings, how he wanted to bring harmony to his creation and nature, and how he just wanted things to be beautiful.
Because things can be beautiful, just for beauty’s sake.
We have lost this idea in too much of what we do. The constant business of life can prevent us from remembering to just allow things to be beautiful. I know I often forget to let myself relax, read a book, listen to music, or take a walk for pleasure. We don’t have to be doing something all the time or working on something all the time. We don’t have to burden ourselves with function above all else, or even efficiency.
Instead, we should let our lives be beautiful, just for beauty’s sake.