PHOTO PROVIDED Rev. William “Bill” Van Oss

I lost a lot of books in the Hurricane Ian flood that washed through my office. Hundreds of books. I took pictures of them soggy on the shelves so that I could replace them. I had spent a lot of time reading and studying those books over the years. They contained a lot of knowledge that I was anxious to acquire so that I would be able to preach and teach with intelligence.

But the older I get, the more I realize that knowledge and intelligence only take you so far in the spiritual life. I have come to appreciate beauty more and more the older I get. Beauty as the means to know and love God. The beauty of creation, beautiful music, the sunrise, a child’s hand-painted picture all move me more powerfully than they did in the past. I find myself captivated by the beauty of an egret walking gracefully through my back yard. The faces of people gathered in the pews for worship each Sunday. Beauty … God’s handiwork. Reflections of the divine.

Recently I came across these reflections in “This Wheel of Rocks: An Unexpected Spiritual Journey” by Marya Grathwohl:

“After almost fifty years of being a Franciscan Sister, I learned that beauty for Franciscan theologians and philosophers is the ultimate and most intimate knowing of God, another name for God, the name for God. Saint Bonaventure and Blessed John Duns Scotus teach that the beauty and diversity of creation nourish us through suffering and loss. When we’ve run out of purpose, when memories of war sicken us, when Earth is attacked with unparalleled savagery for coal, gas, oil, timber, and profit, when poverty runs rampant and extreme wealth for very few soars, when friends betray us, and everyone we love lives far away … then, still beauty endures, and helps us make it through. Like God … “

“I sense now that soul knows itself and its life within the great compassionate Mystery we strive to name. Soul stirs, rises, grows toward and within the unnamable silence and beauty of God, a mothering watery God, a rain beyond (denomination), beyond any specific religion or creed, a rain that soothes us in suffering and challenges complacency. Soul flowers in this rain of the worlds, of meteor showers, of the cosmos.”

I find my soul “flowering” in the beauty that surrounds and sustains me each and every day. Take some time to look for beauty around and within you. You might just get a glimpse of God.

The Rev. William “Bill” Van Oss is the rector at Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church.