Listening to a podcast of “Speaking of Faith” on NPR, I hear the late poet and philosopher John O’Donohue say—in an Irish brogue that could add lilt and meaning to the White Pages—“It makes a huge difference when you wake in the morning and come out of your house, whether you believe you are walking into dead geographical location, which is used to get to a destination, or whether you are emerging into a landscape that’s just as alive as you, but in a totally different form.” Later, he remarks that urban planning in poor areas “has doubly impoverished the poor by the ugliness which surrounds them. It’s understandable that it is so difficult to reach and sustain gentleness there.”
Ugliness is something you have to tense yourself to ignore; it’s a sort of visual violence, a sign of apathy or desecration or punishment. We harden ourselves against it—and in doing so, we harden yourself against the people around us. That’s the exact opposite of the response we have if we’re surrounded by beauty; we relax and open ourselves to it, soak it up, draw it inside us. Beauty lets us be sensitive; it promises no harm will come if we let down our guard.
So when we step outside and see roses climbing up a stone wall, or water bubbling through rocks, it’s not a frivolous pleasure. When we weep over the death of an oak tree that’s shaded our house for a century, it’s not silly. When we plant an urban garden, cheerfully breaking our nails, straining our back, and caking our knees with dirt, it’s not romantic nonsense.
Beauty opens and connects us. Ugliness shuts us down, and breaks us into pieces.
--Jeannette Cooperman, staff writer
