Beauty is to the spirit what food is to the flesh.
A glimpse of it in a young face, say, or
an echo of it in a song
fills an emptiness in you
that nothing else under the sun can.
Unlike food, however,
it is something that you never get your fill of.
It leaves you always aching with longing
not so much for more of the same
as for whatever it is, deep within and far beyond both it and yourself, that makes it beautiful.
"The beauty of holiness"
is how the Psalms name it (Psalm 29:2) and
"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee" (Psalm 42:1)
is the way they describe the ache and the longing.
(Frederick Buechner, Whispering in the Dark)
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