"beau-TEA-ful"

The LORD God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground--trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. (Genesis 2:9, NLT)

Reading the novel, Stella Bain yesterday (in its entirety), one aspect that "stuck with me" was the young World War I ambulance driver's perspective.
"What do you do when your not driving?" asked a friend, from his childhood, who was both a nursing assistant in a field hospital in France and a sub ambulance driver. 

"I look....for....well....beauty." was his response. (p.100).

Both had seen unimaginable injury coupled with suffering and dying. Beauty was difficult to find. But he chose to look for it and record his findings in a small notebook. 

It became somewhat of a contest for them.

"What beautiful thing did you see this week?" she asks.

"I saw a pair of cows behind a whitewashed fence. There were green shoots on the ground. The beauty was in their obliviousness to the insanity around them. They were positvely serene." (p. 103)

Spring in Memphis has a serenity & beauty all its own----even in the midst of weather extremes, "disturbing" nightly news and the heart-breaking prayer requests of friends for their loved ones.  One can still look out or look up and marvel at the handiwork of the Creator. Such a refocus is soothing.

I had a cuppa with a beau-TEA-ful view----right outside my window. 

GLORIOUSLY BEAU-TEA-FUL---I just had to look for it.!

Though my cherry tree bloomed late this year and was then quickly showered with a BIG rain, there was still beauty. The covered ground had an aura of its own. As I told my friends Julie and Leslie, "It looks as if a bride had just traipsed by and folks threw pink petals in her path along my brick walk way." Beautiful!