It may at first seem counterintuitive, that in the midst of Lent we could find and enjoy beauty. But contrition and repentance are not the same thing at all as boringness or repetition or monotony or ugliness. If anything, our Lenten contemplations should drive us in part by comparison – the aching awareness of our sinfulness against the panoramic beauty of creation. Our unfaithfulness in comparison to God the Father’s endless and bounteous and undeserved fidelity. We do not deserve anything, and we are given so much. So much that is good and beautiful.
And these days when beauty and good seem even more elusive, when war and rumors of war rattle our consciences and make our creaturely comforts somehow condemning in the face of others’ utter ruin, these days we need the beauty. Amidst the ashes of war. Amidst the ashes of Lent.
So read this. It’s short, but it will take some time to both understand all of it and resonate with it. I’ve read some Wendell Berry before, but this is a good reminder to me I need to find more of him. I need his beauty, that does not seek to cover over or temporarily displace the evil and hardness of the world and our lives, but points us to the greatest beauty yet to come, and which already spreads – if only palely – its glow on all beauty here and now as well as all ugliness.
The Nelson Family Indonesia 