“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”

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Philippians 4:8 NASB1995

To what end shall I celebrate beauty

When every morning brings tales

Of wars and rumors of wars,

Storms, wrecks, cancers, sudden deaths, upheavals—

When “things fall apart;

The centre cannot hold”?

Is beauty then

Not frivolous, unserious,

Prodigal?

Beauty persists in witness

To the reign of my beautiful God.

This groaning, tattered, blood-stained world,

Tainted in all its parts and properties

By sin and death,

Still bears fingerprints of Glory,

A hint of foretaste of new creation coming,

A faded echo of the “It is good”

Before the “Cursed is the ground

Because of you.”

Beauty persists in resistance,

Not ignorance or denial, but

A lamp lit to defy the dark,

A cellist in Sarajevo’s rubble,

A nightingale in a white night,

A monarch for a memorial day,

A refugee danseur pouring pain into pirouettes.

Beauty persists like Frodo’s star-glass,

A light when all other lights go out,

A weapon in the fight for joy,

A wordless declaration that sorrow and suffering

Are not the final word,

That serpent’s venom spent itself

On Savior’s heel—

Our adversary’s head now crushed—

Resurrection coming,

Unmaking soon to be remade.

Beauty persists

Because God made His poems

Poets—

Creations in Creator’s image,

We cannot but create—

Whether weapons of warfare

And engines of destruction,

Or pain composted into fruitful flourishing,

And heartache mended with golden hope,

Help, sustenance, and comfort

In the conquering Lion-Lamb,

Faithful and True.

Beauty persists,

A foretaste of good promises

On their way to us

And a testament of faith

That they are true.

It tastes and sees and says

That the Lord, He is good.

Beauty leans forward in hopeful expectation

Of God’s faithfulness and steadfast love.

He who is coming

Will come and not delay!

I celebrate beauty

When every morning seems to bring fresh misery,

Because every morning brings fresh mercies

And unfailing love.

Joy persists in flashes of morning sun

On intricately woven web dazzling with dew.

Spring persists in coming

In the cruelest month;

Blooms burst forth from winter’s grave

And the time of the singing of birds will come.

When things fall apart,

God’s centrality yet holds.

His prodigality of beauty,

Lifting my eyes to the unseen, eternal things,

Compels me, too,

To the serious celebration of beauty.

The sculptures depicted are the some of the work of Seward Johnson which were exhibited at the Dallas Arboretum for Dallas Blooms 2025.

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