ecclesiastes on Talents

The great composer Rachmaninoff was famously uncomfortable with being labeled a genius. He preferred to project an image of complete normalcy. Once, a stage-struck listener, enchanted by his “C-Sharp ...

It is the prerogative and charm of beauty to win hearts.

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

If the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light—yet perhaps the . . . unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar...

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

When we lose sight of beauty our struggle becomes tired and functional. When we expect and engage the Beautiful, a new fluency is set free within us and between us. The heart becomes rekindled and our...

The soul’s infinite capacity to desire is the mirror image of God’s infinite capacity to give. . . . The unlimited need of the soul matches the unlimited grace of God.

Beethoven…turned out pieces of breath-taking rightness. Rightness—that’s the word! When you get the feeling that whatever note succeeds the last is the only possible note that can rightly happen at th...

Though beauty gives you a weird sense of entitlement, it's rather frightening and threatening to have others ascribe such importance to something you know you're just renting for a while.

Only the beautiful is loved . . . we cannot help loving what is beautiful.

I would later learn that these are two characteristics of beauty: it never stays, and it never fully satisfies.

The mystery of perfection as an aspect of beauty is its transcendence. It points to a glory beyond itself. I knew that when I held my children, I didn’t simply cradle flesh and blood. I held a living ...

J.M. Montgomery’s novel Emily of New Moon has a passage that conveys the attractive and terrifying aspects of the mystery of God: It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, th...

Goodness is beauty in the best estate.

Beauty will save the world.

Use what you have, use what the world gives you. Use the first day of fall: bright flame before winter's deadness; harvest; orange, gold, amber; cool nights and the smell of fire. Our tree-lined s...

Two Latin words are used to describe useful and beautiful things: util and frui. Util means useful, beneficial, helpful. Frui means enjoyable, pleasurable, and delightful. The created world is both fr...

In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking.

There is a time to go and do; there is a time to listen and reflect. Knowing which is a matter of spiritual discernment. If we were to ask Jesus which example applies to us, the Samaritan or Mary, his...

If angels can fly because they take themselves lightly, does God take Himself lightly?

"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very ...

I asked the earth, I asked the sea and the deeps, among the living animals, the things that creep. I asked the winds that blow, I asked the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars and to all things that...

I think the mistake most of us make about beauty is that we expect it to be pretty—to please us with its proportions, its balance, its harmony, its rhyme. If those are your requirements, I doubt I wil...

As I have worked to clarify my calling, I have learned to pay attention to my energy levels in response to different activities. If I experience a particular activity as being inordinately draining, I...

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to break down, and...

Recently, I was working in my yard when the blooms on my gardenia plant caught my eye. I took off my gloves, laid my clippers aside, and allowed my mind to linger on those flowers. Inhaling the intoxi...

After twenty years of listening to the yearnings of people’s hearts [as a counselor], I am convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire for God.

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.