Beauty's Best Bounty

Imagine if we let Beauty have the profound impact on us that it ought to!

Beauty begets worship’s wonder 

spreads a feast of sheer delight 

to the pleasure of sight’s hunger 

and awe’s raging appetite 

where the commonplace is lavished 

with each season’s opulence 

and the human heart is ravished 

with Mercy’s extravagance 

where dear Lord with loving kindness 

overflows earth’s deeps and heights 

with forgiveness for the blindness 

that more oft than not ignites 

fear and doubting’s loathsome bondage 

making beggars of us all 

when we exchange worship’s homage 

for some lesser beck and call 

while the One, forever faithful 

fills the fields of earth and sky 

with Sound Reason to be grateful 

rather than grumble and sigh 

where we, shamefully forgetful 

of love’s track record of grace 

witness Beauty from a gable 

over-shadowed by God’s face 

where, pray beauty will deliver 

an eternal offering 

of true worship to the Giver 

rather than the Gifted Thing

then when we suffer the hours

not so lovely at first glance

we will look beyond crushed flowers

to the Beauty worship plants/grants 

© Janet Martin

You care for the land and water it;
    you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
    to provide the people with grain,
    for so you have ordained it.[d]
10 You drench its furrows and level its ridges;
    you soften it with showers and bless its crops.
11 You crown the year with your bounty,
    and your carts overflow with abundance.
12 The grasslands of the wilderness overflow;
    the hills are clothed with gladness.
13 The meadows are covered with flocks
    and the valleys are mantled with grain;
    they shout for joy and sing.

Psalm 65:9-13