Papa Frank: August 2009

My family and I visited a new church this morning. The pastor there used a phrase in passing that stuck out to me. He said that something was a "blazingly beautiful experience." Those that have been around here for quite some time might recall that beauty is something that I hold dear. In fact I am in a never ending pursuit of the beautiful. Beauty is something that has not been talked about much on this blog lately and that is something that I am going to change. In that vein, I would like to ponder here what a "blazingly beautiful experience" would be to me. Beautiful is the word here that stands out to most and can be defined as: "delighting the senses or exciting intellectual or emotional admiration." Though this is the most commonly used word in the phrase it is also perhaps the toughest to nail down. By it's own definition it is the essence of subjectivity. So I say: why try?

What have I experienced that I would classify as blazingly beautiful? As with the pastor, the first thing that comes to mind is my experience as a child where I chose to place my life in the hands of an Almighty God. That experience is etched on my mind and is one that I will take with me as long as I have breath. The moment I stood with my wife in front of a large group of friends and family and professed my love for her and my desire to forever join my life with hers. That was a blazingly beautiful experience. The morning that I watched as my twin girls were brought into this world and I held them in my arms and stared at their beautiful faces and held their tiny fingers in my seemingly gigantic hands. That was a blazingly beautiful experience. These are earth shattering and life changing experiences. Easy to see how they could be blazingly beautiful. However, I would offer that the majority of blazingly beautiful experiences in my life are very quiet and unassuming. Things that may be easily passed over by an onlooker. Yet to me they are times of magnitude. Standing in my plain white sheet "ghost" costume as a child waiting to take my first breath of cold Michigan air and mutter the words "trick or treat." My father taking the time to walk around the neighborhood and just talk with me as a child. My mother laying me on her lap in the car and gently breathing warm air in my ear to soothe the pain of an earache. Staying up all night with my wife on accident. Sleeping in my chair while holding my daughters. Watching a child at that very moment when they "get it" and learn something. Sitting in the woods holding a gun and watching intently for anything through the mist of warm breath and cold air. A perfect meal. A sunset shared with my family. And a thousand things in between all these events.

What do you find to be a blazingly beautiful experience?