Beauty Reaches Through the Eye

Photo credit: NASA JPL and the Voyager Team

Beauty reaches through the eye,

To light upon a humble soul,

And teach this other-worldly truth:

“No second piece conveys the Whole.”

-- K. Hartnett, January 2000

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

The Planet Saturn - Queen of the Planets

The beautiful planet Saturn lies next outside the Sun from Jupiter, the king of the planets.  Saturn is indeed the second largest planet of the solar system.  Its disk is about ten times the diameter of the Earth. Stretching around the disk however, lies Saturn’s most remarkable feature: a spectacular system of multi-layered rings.  Spectral analysis of the light reflected from these rings indicates that they are comprised primarily of water ice in millions of pieces that range in size from granules to house-sized chunks.  The existence of the rings is somewhat perplexing to astronomers since it would seem that structures of this sort are inherently unstable and will either collapse into the planet or disperse into space in a relatively short period of time.  The simple, but undeniable beauty of this lovely ringed orb points us to the ultimate source of all beauty, God Himself.  No created thing can match the beauty of the Creator.

Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. (Psalm 96:6)

Succinctly stated, the thought that I tried to express in this poem is this: every beautiful created thing points to an even more beautiful Creator.  We know about  love because God is love. We know about Fatherhood because God is a Father.  We know about beauty because God, the ultimate First Cause of everything, is also beautiful.  Proud people are not likely to recognize this because they have a difficult time honoring and thanking God.  To the humble and worshipful of heart, however, every tiny piece of creation reminds them of the magnificent Genius who fashioned it all.  No item of creation, be it ever so beautiful, can convey the infinite beauty of the Source.