A couple was walking their dog on a magnificent autumn day.  As they strolled down a familiar sidewalk, the woman stopped, gasped, and said "look," to her partner.  He looked up at a large tree half-full of bright yellow leaves shining in the sun. There was space between the leaves so each could be clearly seen. "What?" he asked.  "The hearts," she said quietly.  He looked again and at first didn't see them.  But as he gazed at the lovely tree it struck him as it had her, that every leaf was perfectly heart shaped and the entire tree looked as if it had been decorated with shimmering hearts.  They stood together in amazement for a long time. "I think that is what God's love is like," she said, "it's all over the place and right here in front of us, but we pass by it every day, not seeing it.  "Yea," he said, I wonder what else we're missing that is so beautiful.

In the astounding beauty of autumn in Ohio, they saw this tree full of hearts for the first time as a metaphor for God's love.  All around us, right before our eyes, beautiful and abundant, in every shape and color imaginable - is God's love.  Some say that God is Love.  God certainly is Beauty, and perhaps that Beauty is God's gift of Love.  When we take our blinders off in moments of pure consciousness, we see the acute beauty before us, not only in nature, but in the eyes of people and animals, in art, in simplicity, in kindness, in thousands of ways.  When we look and feel from a point of rest, we see our world and our lives from the perspective of awe.

Give yourself a beauty break today.   Stop and look at something like you've never looked at it before.  Its radiance will surprise you.  While you're at it, pause to look in the mirror.  There you'll truly see a reflection of God's beauty and God's love.