Summer evenings have a unique pleasure. Because it stays light longer, we tend to linger outside more. The last couple of days, I have caught myself just lingering outside and soaking up the beauty of the world. I’ve been watching the deer in the back yard. I know which does will be dropping fawns soon and so I like to check them out. One of them appears to be getting pretty close. You can tell that she is heavy by the way she walks. She is sticking close to the high grass in the neighbor’s yard and that is likely to be the place where she has her little one when the time comes. We’ve been watering the grass and the garden, so there is plenty of tender grass for her to munch at the edge of our yard. Of course I keep the garden fenced to reserve the vegetables, roses and sunflowers for our use.

The irises are in full bloom and showing off. They are dramatic flowers and the particular hybrids that we have in our yard grow very tall and have big blooms. I find myself making an extra stroll around the house in the evening just for the fun of checking out the changes in the garden and flowerbeds. Of course there is plenty of work that needs to be done. I could be weeding. The deck needs a fresh coat of stain this year. The front porch needs a bit of pain as well. But in the evening, I give myself permission to just enjoy the place where I live. I justify it by telling myself that since I don’t watch TV, I can have a few minutes when I’m not getting any work done.

Franz Kafka is a quirky writer. Anyone who has read “The Metamorphosis,” or “The Judgment,” will not soon forget the stories. Kafka once wrote, “Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” It is a lovely sentiment, but I’m not sure that I really agree. In a way, the ability to see beauty is one of the joys of growing old. Despite the way that things seemed when I was a teenager, I don’t have much fear of growing old. There are some aspects of aging that are inviting. I’m not eager for increasing aches and pains, and I know that there are some real challenges to aging. On the other hand, it is not some terrible thing that is happening to me. There are great joys in memories that can be layered with contemporary experience. And there is great pleasure in having a few minutes to just look at the world.

What Kafka does for me, however, is to remind me that the ability to sense and experience beauty is a precious gift – one worth cultivating.

I don’t know if the ability to sense beauty is a uniquely human quality. It is easy to anthromorphize and speculate that the deer might also enjoy the beauty of the early summer evening. But they are mostly interested in finding food and preparing for the birth of new fawns. Who knows what perceptions go through the brains of the critters that are in the yard?

What I do know is that the ability to sense beauty is an important quality of human existence. I think Sean Parker Dennison got it right when he wrote, “The ability to see beauty is the beginning of our moral sensibility. What we believe is beautiful we will not wantonly destroy.”

It is hard to rank beauty among other values. A developmental psychologist might say that moral development in children comes not from a capacity for beauty, but rather from the ability to understand the cause and effect relationship between something that is done and the pain it causes another: “I don’t like it when I am hurt, therefore I can understand that another might also not want to be hurt.” Others claim that moral development grows out of the experience of loving and being loved.

The perception of beauty is an elusive matter. People have different tastes. Some appreciate certain colors more than others. There may even be distinctions in our abilities to distinguish subtle variations in color. The old quote, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” has a certain truth.

It is also the case the practice enhances our ability to gain joy from the experience of beauty. Taking time to look on a regular basis expands the capacity to gain pleasure from beauty. There are some works of art that you want to take home, hang on the wall and view daily. Even if beauty has no other function than the giving of pleasure, it seems to be worth the effort to observe the beauty of the world.

I have a preference for the beauty that naturally occurs. I’m not a real big fan of super formal gardens where every bush is shaped and the flowers are planted in precise patterns. I appreciate the work that goes into such places, but I guess I prefer my world a bit more natural and my beauty a bit more random. There is something to be said about being surprised by beauty, and discovering something beautiful in an unexpected location. I suppose that part of this preference could be a touch of laziness. I don’t seem to find the time to keep the garden completely manicured. There is always a bit of randomness to my plantings. And I like things like the iris that just come up year after year with little effort on my part.

I am grateful for the beauty that is in our world and I am doubly grateful for the capacity to observe and enjoy the beauty that surrounds us.

Folliott Pierpoint’s hymn comes to my mind:
For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies;
For the love which from our birth,
Over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

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