Beauty is His Garment

 Someone once wrote: Beauty is the garment with which God clothes Himself.  I thought of that saying this morning as I read a few pages in Enchanted with Eternity by William Slattery, PhD.  Slattery is writing about the world to come as described by Revelation 21:3:

Behold, the dwelling of God is with men.  He will dwell with them and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them.  

The original Greek manuscript seems to mimic the way Hebrew treats poetry, repeating the word "God" at the end of the verse, "forming a little word picture:"  Himself God/ with them/ is/ their/ God.  God protectively surrounds the sentence as God encircles his holy city and the bride.....at the center of the sentence is the verb of being: is.

What follows is a descriptive paragraph that could be captioned Beauty is the garment with which God clothes himself:

.....while having a more vivid awareness of your own uniqueness than you ever had during your mortal lifetime, you will simultaneously feel your soul flow into intimacy with your Triune Creator-Lover-Rescuer as you experience him cosmically inside you  and all around you: 

in the warmth and soft light of the summer morning, in the freshness of the breeze, in the smile on the other's face, in the grandeur of the mountains; at the sight of turquoise-blie streams, in the aromas of the oak- and pine-vaulted forest where wafts the scent of mint, in the rich, fruity, orchard-sweet taste of the blackberries picked off the hedge, in the soothing lapping of sea waters on the sunrise-gold sands, in the orchestral symphony of the birds, in moonshine-clear Alpine lake waters.  

In all our surroundings, we will intuitively see God's face, hear the resonance of his voice, experience the heat of his love.  He will radiate His presence to us through the exercising of our own creativity and by the delighted experience of other people's creativity.  In the sight of the perfecton of the craftsmanship of our fellow humans, we will sense the inner fire of their authors.  In works of art, architecture, and music, we will sense not only the supreme creative power of the Creator but, in a way beyond our present power to imagine, we will see God himself.

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Today is Thanksgiving.  Can it be a coincidence that this morning I read these pages, just as the weather is gorgeous, with sunshine bouncing off each leaf as I write this memory?  Just as I am wrapped in the sweet memory of an evening meal spent with 14 members of my family?  It might be worth printing these words on a card to be carried with me to a park bench where I can enter into a prayer of thanksgiving for the exquisite treasures of life itself.