Do you know how beautiful you are? You are stunningly, awe-inspiringly beautiful. You are gorgeous beyond measure. Did you realize you are that beautiful?
Psalm 90:17 says, “And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us”. Beauty is a necessary part of life. It is a necessary part of the Divine nature. In fact, it is through the physical that the divine manifests itself. The Science of Mind does not deny the physical universe. The objective universe is the Body of God. And as Plato said, God is love, truth, and beauty.
Beauty is pretty important. So, let’s unravel this a little bit, because, in our culture, beauty is a pretty loaded concept.
I am a woman, in this culture. I, like many, or dare I say, all of us, have been taught conditions and definitions of beauty that are less than inclusive. Too fat, too thin, too old, too different to be beautiful. Shape this, fix that, wear this, shave that. I’ve spent thousands of dollars and countless hours over the years in pursuit of someone else’s notion of beauty. It was exhausting. And, you know what? I never really felt beautiful in this pursuit. So, beauty is something soooo much more.
In the Science of Mind philosophy, we know that the life within you, within me, is God. And we know that the nature of God is harmony, wholeness, and beauty. Each one of us, every one of us, is beauty. Each and every one of us is beautiful.
As Thomas Moore discusses in the Care of the Soul, “The Soul is nurtured by beauty. What food is to the body, arresting, complex, and pleasing images are to the soul”. I believe that accepting our own beauty is a spiritual practice. As we know ourselves as beautiful, we experience life as beautiful. God expressing itself as the beauty of us, the beauty of our lives.
John O’Donahue says “The human soul is hungry for beauty – we seek it everywhere”. We seek it everywhere. But how often do we see stunning beauty in ourselves? We’re socialized not to. My message today is for us all to commit to the practice of owning our own beauty.
We know, in our heads, that we are perfect expressions of god. Can we embrace the beauty of God within ourselves?
I invite you to close your eyes and picture a beautiful part of your body. Great. Now, I’d like you find a mirror. Look into the mirror and say, “I love my _________; it/they are the _______ of God”. Here’s mine: I love my thighs. They are the thighs of God. And then say “and so it is!”.
Today, let’s take over the world of beauty, and make it our own. Let’s rejoice and honor and revel in every spark of the divine that we are. Every creation of God is beautiful. Including, or especially, the one looking back at you in the mirror.
