The Sarajevo Roses took me out. This entire essay left me with a hard lump of emotion in my throat. I'm thinking of tiny blooms making their way to the sun at the frontlines in Ukraine, in the shattered cities filled with resilient people refusing to be shattered - these tiny reminders that life somehow finds a way. Thank you for the care you take to help us cope in a world on fire. ❤️
James ... you really do your homework. And .. to be honest, I have always believed peace is a state of mind. Everything that surrounds you may be in total chaos
but yet beauty and peace can be found. Not going to lie and say that I am always successful at this, but
that does not mean it does not exist... I just cant see it in the fire
Hi Amy - it is when we need to look the hardest - I have lived in war zones (Somalia and Iraq) and ordinary folks have always shown me the beauty even n the chaos and death - we have to keep holding on and help bring that hope to our youth
What a wonderful essay. So many profound instances where beauty does indeed save the world. Solzhenitsyn connected it to Truth -- not ordinary, changeable truths, but eternal ones, truth for all people, all times. In that same address, he repeated a Russian proverb -- 'One Word of Truth Outweighs the Whole World.' Perhaps we cannot by ourselves stop madmen from mass murder, or bring wisdom to those who seek to be fooled, but we can refuse to participate in lies.
Nihilism, dictatorship, demagoguery -- all need the lie to thrive. They cannot live without lies and work assiduously to force people to comply with their lies. Maybe we lack the artistic skills and faith to paint a Sistine Chapel, but we can -- each of us -- refuse to lie for them, refuse to engage in lies to make their job easier, refuse to cooperate with them as they seek to re-write history.
Not through me. Not with my consent. See you all at No Kings Day, March 28.
It’s curious to me that we have a word for dismantling—entropy—but no common word for what gathers things into coherence.
Perhaps it isn’t reality that is lacking, but our way of seeing it. Our human umwelt—our small, filtered world—tends to notice what breaks down more easily than what quietly holds together.
And yet something is always gathering. Always integrating. We feel it most clearly in what we call beauty.
Lao Tzu says we recognize beauty only because there is ugliness. The two arise together. Not as opposites to be resolved, but as movements to be seen.
Life, it seems to me, is lived between these two.
So maybe the question is not whether beauty can exist in a world at war, but whether we’ve learned to notice it—not as decoration, but as the quiet work of integration holding its shape within what would undo it.
Beauty is Truth. Truth, Beauty. I needed this today. Near where I'm living, suddenly there is construction everywhere and nature is paying the price. I feel despair and sadness. But this helped. Thank you James.
A very encouraging essay, thank you so much ! There is a copy of Guernica in my house, thanks to you I will look at the print with even more compassion. There is one version of Guernica in the UN Security Council meeting room, the Bush administration had it covered went they went for the Iraq war. They feared the power of art and beauty.
The Sarajevo Roses took me out. This entire essay left me with a hard lump of emotion in my throat. I'm thinking of tiny blooms making their way to the sun at the frontlines in Ukraine, in the shattered cities filled with resilient people refusing to be shattered - these tiny reminders that life somehow finds a way. Thank you for the care you take to help us cope in a world on fire. ❤️
They don’t wanna talk avout Sarayevo and Ukraine. They just wanna talk about the faraway past.
James ... you really do your homework. And .. to be honest, I have always believed peace is a state of mind. Everything that surrounds you may be in total chaos
but yet beauty and peace can be found. Not going to lie and say that I am always successful at this, but
that does not mean it does not exist... I just cant see it in the fire
of the moment. Thank you. 🕊
Amy, I’m working on it daily, with God: Mastery of Self…what a test!
Thank you James for a magnificent reminder.
I’m in the trenches with you! Keep on, keeping on!
Hi Amy - it is when we need to look the hardest - I have lived in war zones (Somalia and Iraq) and ordinary folks have always shown me the beauty even n the chaos and death - we have to keep holding on and help bring that hope to our youth
It sad that war …after thousands of years for humanity to learn from their pride , prejudice and greed … still exists.
Hope and the light in our hearts must prevail so they have a future.
What a wonderful essay. So many profound instances where beauty does indeed save the world. Solzhenitsyn connected it to Truth -- not ordinary, changeable truths, but eternal ones, truth for all people, all times. In that same address, he repeated a Russian proverb -- 'One Word of Truth Outweighs the Whole World.' Perhaps we cannot by ourselves stop madmen from mass murder, or bring wisdom to those who seek to be fooled, but we can refuse to participate in lies.
Nihilism, dictatorship, demagoguery -- all need the lie to thrive. They cannot live without lies and work assiduously to force people to comply with their lies. Maybe we lack the artistic skills and faith to paint a Sistine Chapel, but we can -- each of us -- refuse to lie for them, refuse to engage in lies to make their job easier, refuse to cooperate with them as they seek to re-write history.
Not through me. Not with my consent. See you all at No Kings Day, March 28.
It’s curious to me that we have a word for dismantling—entropy—but no common word for what gathers things into coherence.
Perhaps it isn’t reality that is lacking, but our way of seeing it. Our human umwelt—our small, filtered world—tends to notice what breaks down more easily than what quietly holds together.
And yet something is always gathering. Always integrating. We feel it most clearly in what we call beauty.
Lao Tzu says we recognize beauty only because there is ugliness. The two arise together. Not as opposites to be resolved, but as movements to be seen.
Life, it seems to me, is lived between these two.
So maybe the question is not whether beauty can exist in a world at war, but whether we’ve learned to notice it—not as decoration, but as the quiet work of integration holding its shape within what would undo it.
Oh, great article by the way!
Beauty is Truth. Truth, Beauty. I needed this today. Near where I'm living, suddenly there is construction everywhere and nature is paying the price. I feel despair and sadness. But this helped. Thank you James.
Thank you James,..for this.. and all the hard work that helps to lift us on a dailybasis.
This is a beautiful essay!
Switzerland ? Let's not forget William Tell. There is beauty in the perfect firing of an arrow in the rescue of an innocent.
"Beauty does not stop wars but it refuses to concede that the worst of what humans do is the whole of what humans are" ....wow, thank you 🙏
I am an artist, new to your writing and I am in breath lock resonance with this writing. Breath love. Pati.
Powerful, thank you!
Thank you for this wonderful piece.
Thank you James, for the work you do and the perspective you share. It is truly uplifting to read your essays!
Thank you so much Steve!
Thank you for showing the heights we can reach, even in the depths of despair. Sometimes we forget.
A very encouraging essay, thank you so much ! There is a copy of Guernica in my house, thanks to you I will look at the print with even more compassion. There is one version of Guernica in the UN Security Council meeting room, the Bush administration had it covered went they went for the Iraq war. They feared the power of art and beauty.
Thank you! Learned so much over and above what I knew a out the artist and authors.
Other than in a few cases I did not connect it turbulent times.
Russian authors are amazing.
The best was Picasso’s answer to the German.
Please keep these insightful essays coming our way, it will help us understand today’s world so much better,
along with what inspires to see beauty.
Thank you!