Casie Trotter sent me a link to a wonderful passage from Nietzsche’s 1882 book, The Gay Science. This is aphorism 276, his resolution for that year:
I want to learn more and more how to see what is necessary in things as what is beautiful in them — thus I will be one of those who make things beautiful… I do not want to wage war against ugliness. I do not want to accusel I do not even want to accuse the accusers… And all in all and on the whole: some day I want only to be a Yes-sayer!
I’m not sure what Nietzsche would think of his work prompting this week’s prayer, but here it is anyway:
God of beauty and wonder,
Let me be known
not for what I found ugly,
but for what I found beautiful.
Not for what was harmed,
but for what was healed.
Not for what I tore down,
but for what I built up.
Not for what I despised,
but for all that I loved.
In the name of the one
who sees the beauty in us all,
Amen