Tonight I went to a 'Variety Show' put on by the youth from a variety of churches here in Larnaka. There were sock puppets, violin and keyboard playing, singing, a choir, various skits and sketches, and more that I can't recall just now. There was singing from the Phantom of the Opera, and the playing of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies from the Nutcracker. And songs I'd never heard before. There was a variety of talent, and a vast amount of enthusiasm. There was laughter and a great deal of clapping and whistling, and even waving of arms and snapping of fingers. What impressed me tonight, especially in my journey for beauty, was that even when there was an error, or a missed note, or a missed line, or a dropped microphone, the sense of joy never went away. Young girls played the guitar and sang on their own and wrote and acted in their own mini plays. It would be very easy to pick out mistakes or false notes, or do a comparison to more professional acts, but what I saw tonight was the beauty that flows out of love. Love honours the work of all. It doesn't show preference, doesn't put one or another person down and lift another up. The only thing it does is show preference to others over itself - as St Paul said, "Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honour giving preference to one another". This was done tonight, and it was beautiful. There was beauty in the Phantom of the Opera solo; and the Nutcracker dance took me back to the last time I saw it performed in London. There was beauty in the voices, in the smiles, even in the embarrassed laughter at mistakes. And there was great beauty in the cheers, the whistles, the smiles, the gracious heart of every person who participated.
Beauty does not require perfection. Beauty actually often appears in a more powerful way when perfection is not reached, when there's a little failure sprinkled in with it. Partly this is because we recognise the struggle. There is a depth of beauty in a fight, an effort, in practicing, in trying. "I can live with losing a good fight; but I can't live without fighting it". (I remember this line very clearly from a film, but I can't remember which one, and my best guess is Million Dollar Baby.) I think we rejoice so much in the beauty of the trying because we all know what it feels like to struggle - or to fail - and we salute those who step up and beyond. I was supposed to sing in a similar type 'variety show' when I was about 13, and I was absolutely terrified. The group of girls changed their minds at the last moment - some mockery from the boys they fancied, I think - and I remember pretending to be mad, too, but really being completely relieved. But now I see it differently. It's a shame that these girls didn't sing their song -and me with them - regardless of the response. It's a shame that the one thing that held them back was the mockery of their so-called friends (or even the guys they liked). How unlike the show tonight, where everybody and anybody was welcomed, and no one was mocked or belittled, and the world was a beautiful place for everyone, at every level of talent.
So I encourage you this weekend to look out for the beauty in the effort. Rejoice, and laugh, and applaud, and love. Because where that beauty is honoured is where it will flourish the most. Smite it, and it will die - crumpled and lost in a corner, pretending to be angry or uncaring but in actuality hurt and disappointed. We celebrate with small children at any effort - first stumbling steps, simple drawings, spade-and-bucket sand castles. And so too does God for us. I'm really missing my quote book, because I'm remembering vaguely one by, perhaps, CS Lewis, about God rejoicing at every stumbling step we take towards Him, not waiting for the beauty and perfection of completeness, but simply taking pleasure in our desire to be with Him. Let us do that for others, and see great beauty there.
My walk tonight was a bit longer than expected as I went ten minutes in the complete wrong direction, but I found beauty there, too. In the lights shining on the old buildings, blue shutters, dusty front doors with huge round handles, iron gates, open doors gazing into comfortable homes where people sat comfortably and talked comfortably. In the starry night above the buildings on my right and my left. In the splash of water lapping at the beach's edge. And in every 'stumbling step' I took, even when it was in the wrong direction. There was still beauty all around, all a part of the journey.
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