“We should be able to smell the dancers from our seats” Doug shared as he told me he had snagged a couple of tickets to the ballet.  The American Ballet performing Stravinky’s Firebird accompanied by the St. Louis Symphony.  Misty Copland dancing.  Bucket list kind of thing.  But the idea of being close enough to smell the body odor from these dancers was, well, NOT on the bucket list.  But there we were, fourth row from the stage, up close and personal.

They make it look so easy, beautifully chiseled muscles responding to every precise movement in time to the music, although at this distance, sometimes you could hear the dancers breathing heavily from the effort. I loved being close enough to see their facial expressions and the tiniest details in their movements, down to the fingertips.  And then it happened.  One of the male dancers did a tour en l’air, or literally a “turn in the air” and as though in slow motion, huge drops of sweat were flung away from him in a beautiful circle.   The turn was stunning, seemingly effortless, but the sweat spoke otherwise.

Nothing truly beautiful comes easily.  Great art and architecture, music, dance, theater, all require discipline, training, patience and just plain hard work.  As I tell my choir kids, the rehearsal is not the fun part.  Okay, we try to make it as fun as we can, but this is where the work takes place.  And work is not always fun – necessary, but not fun.  And that’s okay.  The fun comes much later, when the work is done and the product of that work is beauty.  Beauty that affects other human beings in an meaningful, emotional, life changing way.

As I was contemplating what to write this morning, it occurred to me that the reason there is so much ugliness in the world today is that ugly is easy.  Ugly takes no effort, it’s just allowed to happen.  It doesn’t take any effort to just let ugliness spring from our mouths.  It takes effort and discipline to either hold it in or find a constructive way to say what you feel in a way that is compelling and can change hearts and minds.  It takes no effort to reach out and physically hurt someone when you’re angry.  It takes tremendous effort to reach out to someone with a hug and an “I want to understand you better” when you disagree with them.  It’s easy to hate someone who has treated you badly.  It’s so hard to love and forgive them.  Beauty is hard.

Beauty is all about others.  I create beauty because I want to touch other human beings in a good way.  A beautiful painting, ballet or piece of music, a meaningful theater piece can change a person’s life.  Ugliness is all about the individual.  This is what I want.  This is what I feel.  This is what you should feel or think because I do.  Ugliness is selfish.  There is no attempt to allow the other person to see things their own way.  And an even lesser attempt to accept the way they see it.

The thing with beauty is that each person is allowed to see and experience it in their own way.  At the ballet last night I found myself paying close attention to how each little nuance in the music was interpreted through the movement, to the point where I could see the music.  The other thing that struck me was how silent dance is.  Yes, I know there is music, but there is something compelling about a story told without words.  Doug was focused on the layering of the movement and the work of the ensemble rather than the individual.  Everyone sees beauty in a way that is meaningful to them.

I think it’s interesting how people are both repelled by and drawn to ugliness.  It certainly makes it easy to focus on the ugly instead of the beautiful.  More often than not, it seems we have to find the beauty in a situation and that takes work.  For instance, I saw an article this morning about a wind, percussion and colorguard show in which the percussion section of Stoneman Douglas High School was supposed to perform.  The other students from all the other schools gathered on the gym floor and pledged their support for those students who were suffering.   The ugliness of the shooting last week certainly not forgotten, but these were young people who chose beauty over anger and that beauty touched all who were attending.  No protesting, no fighting, no name calling, just unconditional love and support for the students who are hurting.  Beauty amidst the ugliness.

I once read somewhere that it takes two positives to negate a negative.  For every negative person there needs to be two positive people to fight the negativity.  In a world where ugliness seems the norm, it’s easy to get sucked into the ugliness and show our worst side to the world.  I believe in the power of beauty.  I’ve seen lives changed for the better through beauty.  One of my colleagues has kindly complimented me for being calm during difficult situations.  That’s because I choose to WORK to be that way – it certainly doesn’t come naturally.  My hope is that I either affect change in how people feel and think through calm, kindness and understanding or at least bring compromise.  It takes work.  It takes discipline.  It takes patience. It can create beauty.