True Beauty

A saying I really find truth in is "Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."- Confucius.
Today I conducted a kind of social experiment of sorts with my computer. I googled the word "beauty" and searched for images.

This was the very first image that came up, and I was absolutely thrilled! This! This is beauty! Look at this young girl- this is a picture of African beauty and I am drawn to it. So often beauty is described in such shallow, close-minded terms. Hence the sixth picture that came up...

 Not that this woman isn't beautiful, but there is so much more to it than meets the eye. And not just with people but in many aspects of life. For example, last year when we traveled to the island of St. Martin in the Caribbean, the way these people lived was far different than what we are used to seeing.

This home was what a lot of them were like, better than many in fact. Lot's of houses with no doors, appliances on the porch, pretty run-down. I really like this picture actually and do think it's beautiful. I have shared my trip with a lot of people and someone commented on this "Oh yuck. Was it really trashy on the island?" I had to think about this- if by trashy you mean tons of animals running loose, graffiti all over everything, crumbling walls and broken bottles, dirty alleys with junky cars, then yes. I suppose it was "trashy" but you know what? I thought these things were beautiful. I thought their culture was beautiful. Who in the world am I to go over there and judge the way they live and believe that I could show them so much better just because I am from America? Who's to say they wouldn't judge the way I live?! Because guess what? These people seemed happy. We were around the locals a lot and they just had such an air of  community and happiness around them, and that- that is beautiful.

I continued scrolling down the images I got for beauty and most of them were scantily clad, gorgeous women or make-up products and things to beautify yourself with and the occasional picture of scenery thrown in. How much more beautiful could we make the world if we changed our perception of beauty, and started seeing- really SEEING- the true beauty in things. Here are some things I think are beautiful...

This is my own picture

I want to find beauty in things that may at first appear to be "ugly" or a "disaster." I want to have eyes that are opened to things that many never take the time to notice.
What is beautiful to you?

JORDAN