{"id":22904,"date":"2017-10-23T20:45:35","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T01:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=22904"},"modified":"2019-10-31T01:45:43","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T06:45:43","slug":"why-can-beauty-hurt-so-much-and-why-do-i-see-her-face-in-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=22904","title":{"rendered":"Why can beauty hurt so much? Why do I see her face in the sky?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The experience of beauty can be so intense for me that it hurts my heart — but it’s a joyful hurt that is full of the pleasure of experiencing something which is completely true and real.<\/p>\n

I first encountered this idea when I was too young to understand it. A Star Trek episode quoted a line from English poet George Herbert which asked, \u201cIs there in truth no beauty?\u201d<\/p>\n

I spent a lot of time pondering that line, because it felt important in an irrational way. As I read the various English romantic poets in college, I started seeing a glimmer of understanding, but I still wasn’t there.<\/p>\n

I read about how the Greeks equated beauty and truth. I read the English poet John Keats\u2019 line,\u00a0“Beauty is truth and truth is beauty.”<\/p>\n

And then when I experienced a deeper form of mature love, it all suddenly made sense. I still couldn’t explain the reasoning, but I could suddenly feel it. When I experience transcendent beauty — of the kind I experienced when I photographed this sunset Monday night — I experience something about truth.<\/p>\n

That beauty and truth transport my heart to images of her face — and I am suddenly far away from this physical world, in a place that feels spiritual. Ethereal. Mystical. Full of truth and beauty and love.<\/p>\n

My brain screams that it all sounds like nonsense, but my heart undestands and is bathed in a light of pure truth when this happens. It’s like a religious experience — being taken to a mountaintop to see the face of God.<\/p>\n

When I experienced this beauty tonight, I saw her face in it. I felt her heart. I felt her love. And even though it was all in a spiritual realm, it was as real as the bright palette of colors in front of my eyes.<\/p>\n

It was beauty.<\/p>\n

It was truth.<\/p>\n

It was love.<\/p>\n

It was her face.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was everything rolled into one and held up high as something that can be experienced but not explained.<\/p>\n

I wish I could tell her this, but I can’t. I’d like to send this to her and say, “This is your face to me,” but I can’t. I wish I could step out of this world and step into an ethereal world where I experience her. My heart longs to share this experience of truth and beauty with someone who has no way to know I see her face in the sunset.<\/p>\n

I suppose she will never know. That brings sadness to the joy. It mixes hurt with the beauty.<\/p>\n

I don’t know where she is tonight — and I don’t know that I couldn’t successfully explain this if I tried to talk with her about it — but I saw her face tonight.<\/p>\n

The romantic writers knew that truth and beauty were somehow connected. I can’t explain it, but I know it’s true. The same God who made her face — and taught me to understand and to love every line and angle of it — showed me the same beauty in the sky in front of me tonight.<\/p>\n

My heart can experience what my brain can’t explain. And that’s OK. It hurts to experience that much beauty — and to be filled with love at the sight — but it’s the only way I have to experience her.<\/p>\n

My life would be easier if I didn’t feel that way, but I have to trust that the God who created the sky and her face and my heart — and taught me the connection between them — has His reasons for painting this picture of truth and beauty which I can scarcely comprehend.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> If you’ll click the photo, you can see it at three times the size of my normal photos on here. It’s best experienced at a bigger size.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The experience of beauty can be so intense for me that it hurts my heart — but it’s a joyful hurt that is full of the pleasure of experiencing something which is completely true and real. I first encountered this idea when I was too young to understand it. A Star Trek episode quoted a Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-5Xq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22904"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30680,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22904\/revisions\/30680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}