Unintended Beauty
Waking up to a day I never imagined I’d see, I drift into sleepy thoughts of unintended consequences. That phrase most often refers to the negative side effects of an action, a technology, a law, whatever. Yet I awaken to the knowledge that unintended consequences can just as easily be beautiful. As author Saul Bellow once wrote: “Unexpected intrusions of beauty. That is what this life is.”
A memory of a song arrives in my head as I awaken to this. It’s a song I associate with beautiful personal memories, which the songwriter will never know. Next I remember a friend telling me that encouragement I gave her years ago inspired her path as an author. Apparently her creative life blossomed because of some simple support I don’t even remember giving her. That in turn reminds me of how, every spring, I see feral roses and daffodils where there was once a pioneer forest cabin. The flowers still bloom and spread, over a century after their planters passed away.
The positive effect we have on others may be more than we’ll ever realize, and often takes time to manifest. Saul Bellow’s words took decades to reach me, yet they arrived at a perfect moment. His words feel like shade trees to me, planted to shelter strangers later. I plant words as shelter too, and move with as much kindness as possible, because I believe every act of kindness plants shade, whether or not anyone notices our part in its existence. Even when doing errands, I notice all the people who touch my life and others, via small acts of kind service—beautiful even when only done for pay.
These small acts coalesce, over time, as do their positive unintended consequences. Eventually, as we strive to grow and thrive, we all become people our parents never envisioned. We become someone we never envisioned ourselves. Since the vast majority of us are loving and good, and since even the most troubled have worth, I see us all as beautiful unintended consequences, down to our very essence.
Collectively too, our modern lives are beyond the design of our most creative, insightful ancestors. A few generations back, who could’ve imagined this wild age? Of course, I’m acutely aware of this time’s troubles, including my own. Yet every time those global and personal pains tempt me to despair, I only need to notice tiny elements of simple, unexpected beauty to return me to experiencing the day as a messy, imperfect miracle.
Rough news greets me when I rise, for instance. By the time I enter the outside world, I feel deeply on edge. But a sunflower unexpectedly intrudes upon my anxiety, from along the edge of a gravel road few choose to travel. Its geometric patterns are stunning. Its mere existence is miraculous. Was its growth intended? The answer is at a level of spirit and soul I’m not capable of comprehending.
All I know is that there is a bee at the sunflower’s exact center, laden with pollen. I see that the bee is perfectly aligned with its purpose, no matter the wider, wilder chaos in which its life is cradled. The flower and bee exquisitely mirror my world that way. The reflection they give me brings me back to my own center. To remembering that even in the midst of chaos, it’s possible for each of us to do our small but essential part in passing along beauty, within and beyond our intentions. We too can pollinate future growth, beyond our conscious comprehension.
The more we make it a practice to notice unintended beauty, the more its daily prevalence is revealed. Perhaps it’s something as simple as that sunflower, or a small exchange with a stranger. Perhaps it’s a chance meeting that will later reveal its deeper meaning. Perhaps it’s a single inner thought, surprising and simple, yet as insightful and peaceful as another ancient song.
Perhaps how we respond to all this beauty will become another shade tree, sheltering someone else when we’ve long moved on. In the daily give and take, it’s impossible to say what the next beautiful intrusion will be, given the nature of the unexpected. But I celebrate how reliable the miracle is, that there is always unexpected beauty for us to find and share.