Everybody Needs Beauty

                      Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in                        where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.

John Muir

John Muir is the father of our national park system in the United States. He was from a devout Christian family, but felt a calling to the wilderness in his youth and left the family to hike and engage with nature. While he rejected the rigid Christianity of his father, he retained a love for God and showed a deep respect for Creation.

His favorite place was Yellowstone. He would trudge through the wildness of that place with little more than his boots and the clothing on his back. He lived off the land and engaged Creation in the rawest way possible. He was a pioneer and visionary with a unique understanding and awe of all that God has made.

He saw beauty as the unique domain of the Lord Himself. "No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening - still all is beauty!"

John Muir famously climbed a 100 foot Douglas fir in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the middle of a terrible wind storm in order to experience its fullness firsthand. He said of the adventure, "I kept my lofty perch for hours, frequently closing my eyes to enjoy the music by itself, or to feast quietly on the delicious fragrance that was streaming past."

We must actively pursue places and times where we can roam freely in places where God's created beauty can be found, the wilder the better. Find your Sabbath there and be refreshed in body and soul.