Truth and Beauty

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Tonight I was privileged to attend the lecture of Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (bio here), on the subject of truth and beauty in Islam. 

One thing in particular that he said--or quoted, really--touched me:

Beauty is the splendor of truth.

Taking the statement in, a student in the audience followed up with the question: If something that is truly true is beautiful, can anything untrue still be beautiful?

And his response (to paraphrase): It may be enticing, yes, but it will never attain true beauty because it will always be encumbered by falseness, whether you recognize it at once or not. 

Think on that.

A few more of my favorite sound bytes from the night: 

--If this world is something, God is nothing. If God is something, this world is nothing.

--Expression of truth brings with it an understanding of hierarchy of art.

--God is beautiful. Sacred art is always divinely inspired. 

--Ugliness is human invention.

--Truth means that there is God.

Elusive Elation

In those elusive instances of piercing elation and wonder, a shadow hovers somewhere between my stomach and heart reminding me that I will never be so happy the same way twice.  Even as I take in the joy of the moment, I mourn its inevitable end. A faint sadness for the girl without.

But if there is one thing I have learned in my short nineteen years, it is that these moments, they return.   A particular composition of people, place and time meant to be enjoyed and not reciprocated, yet each bound by a common sense of reckless freedom and separation from reality.

And just as these experiences are never the same, I am never the same within them.  A theretofore unknown piece of me illuminated.  Yet as time moves forward and people and places fade, the memory of illumination remains.

Returning to the daily, weekly, monthly, the subtle, warm knowledge that once

I dabbled in brilliance.

Wonderland