Ordinary Beauty

Gosh I love "Auntie Leila"!  She had a sweet post today on the importance of ordinary beauty.

 Ordinary, as in, the beauty that is found in our homes.

Ordinary as in imperfect, but still beauty.  Still reminding us of the Perfect.

We mothers and homemakers work hard to put order and beauty into our homes.  We want to create beautiful atmospheres for our family to live and flourish in.

But we aren't a "House Beautiful" magazine.  Ours is not a showcase.  Ours is the daily imperfect.  A path of humility.   The trick, though, I think, the trick to finding peace in this imperfect--rather than the constant frustration and deflation that comes from everything you work to put in to ordering being undone by the masses (our children, of course)--is to savor those glimpses of ordinary beauty.

 Ann Voskamp in her book "1000 Gifts" speaks of being a "beauty hunter".  We have to train our minds to see it amidst the imperfections, and then, to savor it: really store it up in our hearts!

mermaid making

Like Mary did.  Always treasuring things in her heart, pondering.  Because the mystery of the Infinite, the Perfect, shows through in these thousands of imperfect moments, spots, of beauty in our daily, ordinary, lives.

And as today is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, following the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, I feel it is appropriate to add, "even as we carry our daily crosses."  Even IN the Cross, there is beauty.

If I had two hands and more time I'd try to wax more poetic or eloquent, and right now I'm barely coherent, but I'm gonna publish anyway.  This is all I've got right now.  Imperfect, but worth pondering, so I share. :)