10 Beautiful Things, vol. 46

Good morning! (Actually, it’s not morning anywhere my readers are reading. Good afternoon/evening.)

This is 10 Beautiful Things, a weekly missive about the search for beauty in ordinary life. Here you’ll find ten things I’ve found beautiful, online or off. I hope to share some beauty with you, and encourage you to find (and share!) some beautiful things of your own.

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1. George Herbert’s Prayer (I):

   Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,

   God’s breath in man returning to his birth,

   The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

   The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth

   Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,

   Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

   The six-days world transposing in an hour,

   A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

   Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

   Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

   Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

   The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

   Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,

   The land of spices; something understood.

2. I learned about this poem because I’m currently reading through Malcolm Guite’s The Word in the Wilderness during Lent this year. It is very, very good. I have historically not been much of a poetry reader – beyond anything that Grace Shaw writes – but his anthology with reflections that follows the season of Lent into Easter has been accessible to a new reader, theologically rich, and emotionally striking.

3. A harvest moon spotted from North Street.

   

4. Getting to share my favorite bits of Glasgow with a new friend – visiting the old haunts and discovering some new ones. (Glasgow Green, I’ll be back for you.)

5. Madison Cunningham, live with new songs and new arrangements for old songs. – like Life According to Raechel on piano.

   

   certified slay

6. An apple cake, perfectly baked.

7. Heather and daffodils starting to bloom by the library.

   

8. Gorogoa. (Thanks for the recommendation Ian!)

9. Being introduced to new-to-me music by friends.

10. Janetta’s Gelateria: in St Andrews, people eat gelato here year round, even when it is 0 degrees celsius and sideways-raining outside. I always thought this was weird behavior. But, I went for the first time last week and it changed my life. I had vegan chocolate gelato, and it tasted so much like real dairy I was in disbelief. I have not had a chocolate ice cream cone in two years, so this was a big moment for me.

What’s something beautiful you found this week?

More writing later this week!

My annual reading roundup post, my yearly Substack tradition in which I review a somewhat randomly-selected handful the books I read last year, is coming to your inbox this Friday. Two of my reads were The Two Towers and Return of the King, and I have some thoughts. See you then!