I’ve been embraced by another glorious day today. A billowing breeze has kept the porch so pleasant. I’m thinking of the song Beautiful by Carole King where she sings, “You’ve got to get up every morning with a smile on your face and show the world all the love in your heart then people gonna treat you better. You’re gonna find, yes you will, that you’re beautiful as you feel.” Good advice we should all adhere.

I feel beautiful this morning. The sky is dark blue and free of clouds and the crescent moon is still awake, so handsome in his pearly white suit. I’ve been perched in the swing eating my Mrs. B’s biscuit and fruit watching the birds and the squirrels frolic. Fatty and Brownie, my squirrel friends, have happily been hanging upside down on the bird feeder poles gobbling seeds and I’ve just let them.

A large whirl wind of brown magnolia leaves just clattered down the street, lively and loud enough to wake Penelope who bounced up to check out the noise. Lots of birds this morning — chickadees, cardinals, brown headed cowbirds, doves, downy woodpeckers, titmice, wrens, and pretty purple finches, so wondrously watercolored by God in dark raspberry plumage.

One of my burgundy sunflowers opened its bud today and the bloom is decorated with tiny honey bees, very busy little workers, all covered in sunshine yellow pollen.

Skipped across the hot pavement to the mailbox and I found a letter from Boss Lady. We’re pen pals but follow the strict rules of “you write and then I write.” I had not written in a while and had slowed down our pen palling. I’m so excited to quickly hear back from her and I’ve pledged to write more often. There is beauty in a written letter, too. Each letter becomes a keepsake, a tangible expression of personal connection that can be enjoyed over and over.

I missed the sun rolling down the horizon at sunset but I saw the most glorious clouds, rounded and colored deep purple, their edges outlined in mirrored gold and highlighted with hot pink, brief but wondrous in their beauty. The clouds looked like Mother Nature had dabbed her watercolors on the clouds’ edges and let them seep into the purple hues. I turned around to pick up my camera and the clouds were gone. Their beauty was fleeting.

Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder. What is beautiful to one might not be beautiful to another. Beauty is defined as “the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind.” God himself created all the beauty in the world, put the glorious watercolors on Mother Nature’s palette, gave us butterflies and songbirds and so many other wonders of nature, and blessed us with a loving heart to rejoice in his love. Helen Keller is quoted as saying, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched — they must be felt with heart.”

I decided to make a list of ten things I think are beautiful — a genuine smile, babies, dogs, zinnias, butterflies, children’s laughter, sunsets, the ocean, older folks aging naturally, and vegetable gardens. I’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night with a completely different list. Oh, well… The most beautiful things in our lives are our loved ones and our memories, our feelings, and our smiles, and our laughter.

Our relationship with God is a thing of beauty, too. He will always love us regardless of what we do or how we live. He will always carry our burdens, give us peace, and light the darkness.

“Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,” Psalm 90:17.

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful… Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson