04/22/2026
"Beauty: She Didn't Have to Make It Beautiful"
Full post: https://iowafaithandclimate.org/when-every-day-is-earth-day/
Here is a question worth sitting with: Why is a sunset beautiful?
There is no evolutionary necessity for the particular pink of an October sky over an Iowa river. The bee could communicate the location of flowers without the dance being elegant. The monarch butterfly could migrate south without being orange…which is to say, without being glorious.
And yet, the earth is extravagant. She offers beauty in quantities far beyond what survival requires. She decorates. She adorns. She seems, at times, to be showing off. It’s not for us, but as an expression of her own exuberant nature.
Many theologians across traditions have said something like this: beauty is not incidental to creation. It is evidence of the generosity at the heart of the universe. The Muslim concept of ihsan means excellence, beauty, and doing more than is required. It might describe not only human virtue, but the character of the world itself. The earth practices ihsan constantly.
* The ordinary is sacred. A blade of grass. A thunderhead building in the west. The smell of rain on dry earth. All of it offered freely, every day.
* Beauty without purpose. The aurora borealis. The spiral of a nautilus shell. Birdsong at dusk. More beauty than we could ever need, given anyway.
* Renewal without reminder. Spring comes whether we have earned it. The flowers bloom for no committee. The earth renews herself on her own faithful calendar.
