Sunday Story…Beauty and Pain

“The pain passes, but the beauty remains”…Renoir

I read this quote recently and it has stuck with me. It strikes me as so true in so many ways. Pain is inevitable. This is a given fact. Whether we are engaged in a physical pursuit, an artistic one, or an intellectual one there is, inevitably, some pain involved if we are really putting some intensity into our activity.

After the pain passes, though, what is left? Beauty. Even if the workout leaves me on the floor, gasping for air, and wanting to die, when it is over I am left with a beautiful sense of accomplishment.

After the pain of learning and growing in knowledge, after the struggle of acquiring new information there is left a brand new thing all shiny and pristine ready to be put to work.

After the birth of a new artistic creation, after the fear of baring your soul, after the stuttering steps of begin and destroy and begin again, after the tearful culmination there is the part of you on the canvas or marble or page that is so raw and visceral that is can only be described as beautiful.

How many times have we failed to start for the fear of the pain being too great, too much to bear yet again? How often do we lose sight of the beauty that is lying right past the pain? How often will we allow pain to subsume beauty?

Trust the beauty to be there when you are done. Trust the crucible that forges beauty from pain, diamonds from coal, and new life from nothing. The process is integral and instrumental and inseparable…pain passes, beauty remains.

Namaste

John Mariotti

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