Mountain Climbing and The Nude

The Blood is in Me, by Tim Holmes

The beauty of a young person is embodied. It can be clearly and unmistakably seen in their body. By any idiot. (Fortunately, allowing even idiots to delight in the wonders of creation!) That serves– like the bud of a flower– to draw the attention to something that is about to happen. By its beauty are we called to that image. But, for those of us who are still paying attention, there is to be an unfolding. The vitality of this physical body serves as a metaphor for the unfurling of the greater gift that will drop out of sight as we age. In the physical world that image cannot be improved upon, thus forming the most gloriously beautiful object in all of Creation! The stream at that point goes underground. Because they are birds of the surface, the eyes continue to look above ground for the flow which begins to look drier and more shriveled the longer we gaze. But in the older person the real action is now down below where the stream has dropped and even now rumbles the ground with its authority.

The young person knows nothing about this. Perhaps, like the inviting prospect of a distant mountain we wish to conquer, if we knew from the start how hard the climb would be we would never embark on the journey. But as we climb, the summit actually retreats, bringing us to one false summit after another, til near the top, we can finally thank God that the climb was actually much more than we bargained for. Our world has meanwhile enlarged and with it the scope of our labor. Whose rewards are all the richer for it, as the beauty that meets our eyes we know to be nothing compared with that breathtaking Beauty that now lives in our hearts. This is the reason there's only one species that climbs mountains or gazes at nudes for pleasure.  Thank God for our gift!

(To see more of my art, go to TimHolmesStudio.com)