Fish tails and other tales of beauty

Over a dozen years ago someone sent me the quote: "An idealist is someone who is always homesick for a place they have never been".   I relate to this quote immediately because I have been homesick my whole life for the Kin-dom of God: for a place where Justice rolls down like rain, where love is practiced with abandonment, and where kindness and equity run hand in hand, and where community is a way of being. It has been very painful at times to not live there.

But recently I have been thinking that I have been approaching this the wrong way.  Happiness studies show that people who compare "up" are unhappy, and that people who compare "down" are.   This is another way of saying do you see the glass half empty or half full.  But I think of the story of a man in a Nazi concentration camp (I believe Victor Frankl) who was served a bowl of soup that had a bit of fish tail in it, and as the light hit the scales and reflected off in a sort of rainbow way he marveled and rejoiced over the sheer beauty he saw.   When I first heard that story many years ago I was sort of stunned that anyone in such a horrible and oppressive situation could find any comfort or joy while in such a setting.   And it seemed hard for me to understand that such a "small" beauty could do it for him.    But now I am aware of how often people who are in the last weeks of their lives talk about how love and beauty or the only things that really matter.

I had a weird day in which their were various frustrating things, and opportunities to feel discouraged or annoyed.  But if I am honest there was also the opportunity to notice an amazing couple who had adopted numerous special needs kids, or a whole group of people just trying hard even as they perhaps miss the mark, or a moment looking out on the Sound where the water was all shimmery and the sun was hitting it in a way where it just looked like a thousand diamonds.  I realize maybe the Kin- dom of God is not some magnificent place of perfection that I can never quite get to, maybe it is just these small moments over and over again.