Year: 2021
Type: editorial
Abstract: I heard several people say in online chatter before a meeting that the autumn of 2020 was the most beautiful that they had ever remembered.Several people commented about the colors of the leaves, the extended warm weather, and the beauty of the October light.I could hardly disagree with them; I did wonder, though, if it had, in fact, been an extraordinarily dazzling fall or whether they had just taken time to notice it due to the constraining circumstances of semi-lockdown during the pandemic.I suspect that it was the latter.Though most of us experienced many kinds of loss and grief during the long ordeal, it also had the odd effect of helping us to slow down and pay attention to small and ordinary beauty all around.Almost like van Gogh's paintings of grass, undergrowth, or a vaseful of flowers, the ordeal through which the world has passed since early 2020 provided occasion to look, listen, and reflect on small, ordinary things.Despite all the losses and the waiting, I now have an appreciation for foxes, foliage, and all manner of flittering things in my neighborhood.I suspect that many around the globe have had a similar awakening to small beauties that in "normal" times would have been ignored or passed by on the way to something deemed to be much more important.As Alexandra Horowitz writes in her fascinating book about learning to attend to the complexity and beauty of her neighborhood in New York City, On Looking: A Walker's Guide to the Art of Observation, "Sometimes we see least the things we see most." 1 Somehow, noticing small, beautiful things afforded moments of respite and poignancy for millions of us in recent months.These moments of attending to taken-for-granted realities did not solve our problems or obliterate our suffering, but they did make such hardships more bearable.
Source: Theology Today
Author: Gordon S. Mikoski
Institution: Princeton Theological Seminary
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3154534848