Writing opens up a person to things inside.  Faith opens a person to things deep down. 

Since people gravitate to different genres and different writing styles, it’s fair to say that we read various things for various reasons.  But everything we read–and if you’re a writer, everything you write–should contain something that provokes what’s inside and eventually that something, after all the dirt and grime and sticky liquid of lifelessness, is beauty.  I don’t think we look for beauty enough.  Perhaps I don’t.  In fact I know I don’t.

I see a lot ugly in Chicago, especially lately.  Kids die at the hands of kids.  Police corrupt police.  Managers mislead employees.  Unemployment increases in one community, like the Black community, more than it does in most others.  Ugly.

There is no life in reading or watching something that contains no beauty.  That said, I can’t get away from the news most days.  Whether online, in my car, or on that box in my house, I sit and listen, and I wonder why I feel so ugly when it’s over.  Most of it doesn’t grasp for what is lovely or true or captivating in a deep sense.

But here’s the thing, it’s difficult to write about hard things beautifully.  Is beauty a fair adjective to describe life when it’s hard and gritty and painfully unattractive?  Probably not.

But honest descriptions about hard life are beautiful because they are real.  Authentic.  Reachable in a human way. 

When we can envision something, craft it in our imaginations, we have touched the breathtaking.  Unfabricated stories and statements are the best words to share because they are cleaner even if they are harsher.  In my mind they are more beautiful.  They are closer to truth.  They push us to hope and work and live.  Even inside ugliness or underneath it.

When was the last time you witnessed something beautiful?  What was it?  Tell me about it.