Chauffeuring the spirit

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Beauty is, first and foremost, a quality of divinity, which we experience in the presence of the God whose spirit abides within us. When we are fogged in the dim realms of mind, and even the dim realms of soul, the borderland of spirit consciousness is always imminent, always closer to us than our next breath, closer than the air we now inhale and exhale. In God we live and move and have our being.

Only the presence of spirit enables us to know our heavenly Father. Only spirit liberates us from material, emotional, social, and intellectual struggles as we move into the light of love. Our joy in the spirit is our experience of divine beauty.

Our first duty and privilege is to facilitate the entry of this spirit into action, like a chauffeur drives a dignitary around here and there, so that the dignitary may function and manifest. This blessed work of being like a chauffeur is walking in beauty.

As we begin to feel the thrill of service that goes the second mile, above and beyond the call of what is expected and demanded, we can become like the dog that, at a fork in the trail, chases after whatever attracts, and runs ahead of its master, needing perhaps to be called back to the road not taken. We can become exhausted, not because we have worked well, but because we have overworked ourselves. Waiting on spirit, advancing in spirit, we are in the presence of constant, divine energy. We intuit when to rest.

As we mobilize ourselves to ascend the heights of the growth challenges that confront us day by day, we can take on too much too fast. We start to notice that overrapid growth has consequences that subvert our progress. But falling into step with spirit, we enable spirit to presence.

Spirit beauty presences in the beauties of nature and the charm of intellectual art. Artistic living at its best has the beauty of transcendent willingness and inspiring spontaneity, in self-forgetting dedication to the doing of the will of God—expressing the divine spirit that dwells within.

Artistic proclaiming of supreme truth is not hasty and rough, mustering false courage to force magic formulas upon resistant ears. Artistic proclaiming awakens receptivity by engaging the other in the living spiritual reality of truth, by imparting the joy that awakens the desire for more. The true courage to proclaim then stands on the ramparts, the sublime and sovereign height that presences decisively, far above the fleeting shadows that would otherwise intimidate.

Supreme beauty in the divine spirit. Beauty constant and beauty that moves and pervades. Beauty that crowns truth and graces goodness. The beauty of love. Beauty that attracts us to participate by the way we live, increasingly abiding in the presence.

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