“It’s a beautiful day in Pennsylvania!” Thus spoke Pete Wambach on his daily radio program for over 20 years. I grew up in Pennsylvania, so I remember it well. Fred Rogers used to sing his title song, “It’s a Beautiful day in the Neighborhood” for his children’s show. “The night is beautiful, so the faces of my people.” wrote Langston Hughes. Paul McCartney followed up with the song, “Beautiful Night” in 1997, which itself is a beautiful expression echoing Hughes.
In art, literature, poetry, music, and drama there are thousands of references to beauty – which remains in the eye of the beholder, because human standards vary. Yet, God looks for beauty in our hearts, not our outward appearance. One need not be a supermodel to be considered beautiful. In the end, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, honesty, generosity, character, and wisdom mean much more.
In 2024, over 38 million people had some kind of surgery or treatment to alter their appearance. We want to look younger or more attractive to the opposite sex or in some cases, keep up with current fashion trends. We chase an elusive standard of beauty while being unable to define just what that standard is. Goodness, truth, and beauty, which used to be considered transcendental qualities, have become tools to sell products – and people. What we might find on Truth Social is sometimes neither true nor sociable.
We also say we “love” flowers, books, movies, ice cream, pizza, chocolate, pie, dogs, cats, and people. C.S. Lewis wrote a book [The Four Loves] about the different aspects of love – brotherly love, friendship, romantic love, and unconditional (Christian) love. We can love others in different ways, but we still use the term carelessly.
Not everything that is called “beautiful” really is. At least not in the same way. I had a couple of teachers who called certain equations, “beautiful.” When mathematics and the world align, especially in a simple, elegant equation, it seems to me there is beauty in that. I know some accountants who probably celebrate the beauty of balanced books. I also know a few people who think a clean, well-ordered house or a well-maintained car is beautiful. But I digress.
We can call something beautiful just to advertise it. The pulchritudinous pachyderms of the Barnum and Bailey Circus come to mind. It certainly sounds more stupendous than beautiful elephants. Steve Irwin, the “Crocodile Hunter,” would often exclaim, “What a beauty!” about snakes, crocodiles, lizards, frogs, insects, and tiny mammals in genuine appreciation of the natural world. I think he meant they were beautiful representatives of their species. As Ray Stevens sang, “Everything is beautiful in its own way…” I think Steve Irwin was a beautiful human being.
Which brings me to the One Big Beautiful Bill. Any large piece of legislation is like a minefield. And to think – a few years ago, there was a lot of talk about passing single-issue bills that contained no hidden traps – no pork or poison pills – to keep the legislation clear and the votes “clean.” A Big Bill cannot be clean – or beautiful – except in the minds of those who happen to like it and are trying to sell it. It’s easy to be deceived by marketing slogans. It’s hard to stay focused on function, not to mention reality. “There’s a sucker born every minute,” P.T. Barnum reportedly said. It seems to me Big Beautiful Brags are intended to appeal to the cohort of suckers who think that what sounds good, true, or beautiful really is. In my experience, what sounds good often is not.
If we want a beautiful day in our home state, or a beautiful life in general, we need to be prepared to see things as they are, not as we want them to be or as they are presented to us. Otherwise, we might be stepping on landmines for years to come. We need to learn to look beyond the surface, beyond what something sounds like or looks like or what we’ve been told about it. A thing might be beautiful, and we would never know it because we only noticed its outward appearance. On the other hand, a thing might be hideous on the inside, and we wouldn’t notice until it’s too late.
MurrayWorks 