365 Days (Part 2) | ✓

291. Title First

291. Title First: Make a list of potential poem or story titles and choose one to write from.

I actually have a list of possible, future story titles. This is something a little older I rewrote and edited.

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Pulchritude

The most beautiful things I have ever seen was not supposed to be beautiful. I see beauty in my mother, drudging day after day with patient sacrifice for us. I see beauty in someone who took pity on the girl standing alone and went to talk to her. I see beauty in smiling at a stranger, holding the door for an elderly couple, hugging someone who's hurting.

I hear it in voices raised to praise the Lord and in crying for someone. It it present when life arrives and departs. Beauty abounds in a friendship, in family, and in a good heart.

To me, beauty isn't a nice face, or a pretty scene. It's the hard, nitty-gritty, dirty things no one wants to do, but someone does them anyway, because they need to be done. Beauty is summoning courage and lowering pride. Beauty is love, and love's best form is loving others. It doesn't matter if it's picking something up for someone, or saying "thank you," or saving the world. When you do something for someone, even if it costs you -- especially if it costs you -- you are loving them, and that, I think, is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

True beauty if never obvious. It's not the first thing you see, but once you see it, it infiltrates every part of your brain and strikes you in places you forgot existed. It's the catch of sympathy in an eye; it's the kiss stolen when no one is looking; it's the sigh of relief when work is done for the day. Beauty has to be sought, to be found, to be remembered. Beauty is sacrificial love, it's warm friendship, it's honest pride in someone else.

Beauty is shown in both actions in inactions. Beauty can be present in words both spoken and unspoken. Beauty can be found in noise and silence. It exists when someone is present and when someone leaves. There is a beauty in sadness, as well as happiness. With so many chances to witness beauty, why doubt its existence? Perhaps you have not been seeking it in the right places.