Life’s ingrained beauty

By Christian John V. Camorahan

The author

Christian John V. Camorahan is a student at Liceo-de la Salle Senior High School, Bacolod City. The photos are his.

Life is beautiful because everything that we see and experience has some form of innate beauty crafted in the tender hands of God himself.  Life is full of moments of bliss, success, comfort, pleasure, and jubilation, moments also accentuated by grief, sorrow, failure, and adversity.

Sunset

Sometimes the beauty of life is like the sun shining brightly but covered by dark clouds which symbolize the melancholy and complications that we have in ourselves. Some people fail to see what is behind those dark clouds because they can either be consumed by negativity, or just fail to notice it. To experience the beauty of life, we must open our eyes and notice everything when we look at our surroundings and not be shallow and blind to them. The meaning of beauty varies from one person to another because it is very subjective.

But the sad truth that underlies our perception of life is that sometimes we treat it more as an adversary than a friend, more of a curse than a blessing because we are too blind to see its real beauty, too ignorant to sense its real meaning, and too shrouded by negativity to experience its wonderful reality.

Wheatfield with Reaper at Sunrise, Van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

Sometimes the simplest things are the most beautiful of all but may be overlooked and unrecognized. We tend to ignore the most common things that we have and fail to be grateful since we do not recognize and give value to them. Every day that we wake up and can see our surroundings and make sense of our entire reality is a blessing. We can see all sorts of things ranging from our belongings, our house, the trees outside our window, the colors of the sky as the sun rises over the horizon, the smoky white clouds taking different shapes and forms, the flowers that bloom in the meadow, the grass that sways as the gentle breeze passes along, the sweet faces of our family, and much more. All of these things are simple yet beautiful in their own way.

Clouds over Bohol

The saying ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ means that each of us has a different perception of beauty. I may perceive something as beautiful whereas others may not find it attractive at all. Each of us can choose to be blind or not to the beauty in our daily life.

There is no doubt that life is full of blissful moments and wonderful experiences; but adversities and challenges are also a part of life. There are times where we are hurt and experience pain. There are also times that we are so badly wounded that we think that we should just give up walking on our paths through life. We should always remember that no matter what life will throw at us, be it pain and misery, we should never give up and not forget those things that will help us to grow and develop as better individuals. Problems will not last, and life teaches us to endure them and to stay still because at the end of each struggle and hardship we will reap the good fruit of our labor and we will reap what we sow. Life is beautiful because no matter how harsh it is, it never fails to give us happiness and hope.

Still-life with Coffee Pot, Earthenware and Fruit, Van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

Some people fail to grasp the beauty of life because they are just focusing on negative things and they do not realize that life is so much more than that. Yes it is true that difficulties are part of living but we should not let our lives revolve around them. Rather, we should be more optimistic and look at problems from a different angle. If we learn that mistakes and adversity do not determine the totality of our lives but can help us to grow, then we can say that they too are beautiful. We should not let negativity hinder us from seeing the beauty around us and we should not give in to it because life is beautiful the way it is.

Flowering Garden, Van Gogh [Web Gallery of Art]

Life is God’s masterpiece. It is an art form crafted with perfection and beauty, an exquisite flower that blooms and grows amidst every adversity.

We should consider that each of us has our own perception of life and bear in mind that God is the artist and He believes that it is beautiful, the way it is, and the way He created it.

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good (Genesis 1:31).