Beauty may not, as Dostoevky claimed, “save the world,” but without it, neither salvation nor the world is complete. Why has God planted in the human soul a need for beauty? One reason is that, as Emerson said, “beauty is God’s handwriting—a wayside sacrament.” As such, it deepens and refreshes us, making it possible for us to endure the ugly, the grotesque, and the unseemly. There is so much of the world that is unbeautiful that we should never “lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful.” This devotional focuses on beauty and explores its relationship to other virtues.

Bob Rees