It’s in the eyes, I think.

Beauty. Real beauty, that is.

But not in the greenness or the brownness or the blueness of them. Not in the shape of them, or in the length of the lashes, or in the perfect combination of liner and shadow.

Real beauty is never in how we are seen, but in how we see others.

It’s this – how we see – that makes us beauty-full.

Or not.

We get to choose. We always get to choose.

Choose whether or not to see the worth and the humanity in the stranger or the lover or the friend or the brother.

Choose whether or not to forgive and forget or hold on and hold back.

Choose whether or not to notice the need, and do something about it, or just concern the self with the self and move along.

We get to choose. We always get to choose.

Yeah, turns out that the real secret to real beauty isn’t really in the way you look, but in the way you see.

Mother Teresa said that she saw Christ in the poorest of the poor. The divine in the most desperate. That she saw  holy beauty in the dirty and the diseased and the dismissed.

This is where the beauty-full is found – in seeing the true worth of the other.

The poor other. The needy other. The despised other or hated other or one-so-different-from-me other.

Maybe mostly even in the one-who-hurt-me other.

Eyes that see are all we really need to be really beauty-full.

Eyes that see the good in this world even if it’s just a sliver of a moment in the middle of a messy day. Eyes that notice grace when it happens – and it does happen every day – then maybe just whisper thanks for it.

Eyes that see that the other is really just us, and we’re all connected and no matter how un-connected we may feel, we get to choose to see.

Eyes that see – that’s the real beauty treatment we all need, no matter what the cosmetics companies say.

Because the way to real life, real joy, and real beauty isn’t for sale and it isn’t in a bottle and it isn’t in a tube or liner or shadow either.

Real beauty comes from seeing the beauty in others.

And we get to choose – we really get to choose – to see beauty and to live beauty-full.

~xo,
LuAnne

{a re-edited post from the archives}