Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting — a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.” Most writers use listing as a way to support or elaborate a point presented in their argument. Creating lists without using “etc.” still invites the reader to add to the list ad infinitum.
Here, in support of recognizing “beauty,” Emerson creates a metaphor combining the spiritual and the physical planes in “God’s handwriting.” He is emboldened by his success, extending the comparison using the oxymoron “wayside sacrament.” So, the first subtle invitation for readers to add their own item to a list is begun by this two-fold extended metaphor that the writer himself adds to again at the end of his argument in “a cup of blessing.”
Just as Emerson has unexpectedly combined spiritual and physical elements, he sets up a parallel combination, by associating beauty and fair. Beauty is sublime; fair, a bit earthly, mundane, though one could make a semantics case that fair in Emerson’s day was often exchanged for beauty. I suggest that the writer wants us to see a spark of heaven in every aspect of life on earth, even in the most common occurrences. Thus, the common is elevated is the equation of unlike objects to that which is wondrous. Ah, the mathematics of figurative language! Furthermore, doesn’t beauty reside in the eye of the beholder?
Now we come to the second listing in the excerpt, namely fair, or uncommonly common phenomena. For face and sky and flower begin the cadence of addition. I would like to add a brief encounter I had last week that not only extends the list but also centers around the truly essential word in Emerson’s offering: opportunity.
Nothing warms the heart like witnessing the excitement when a long time wish is granted, especially for a younger person who still has a strong faith in happenstance and, being on the verge of adulthood, is beginning to have that faith in humanity challenged by the array of disappointments that become just another part of life. Insert here the cliche about nine rejections for every one successful attainment, sale, or acceptance.
I was privileged to be in the same coffee establishment that a friend and her teenage son were in, when the young man was hired as a barista, beginning the next day. Of course, getting a job in service may seem fair at first, but it is elevated to the status of awesomeness if the seeker has included the job’s pursuit in his dreams of happiness. Such was the case. He had been drooling after this position at this particular establishment for over two years.
I had seen this young man get his hopes up and dashed too many times, his filling the void with jobs that didn’t quite measure up in his estimation. But, this young man seemed to be a manifestation of Henry David Thoreau’s words: “All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.”
The sparkle in this teen’s eyes and the body language that shouted sheer joy was too much to resist joining in with my own broad smile and laughter. The event, fair as it may have seemed to the unobservant, was priceless, as the commercial goes.
The irony of having an opportunity to witness someone getting an opportunity was not lost to me. It only made the moment that more enjoyable. It’s certainly affirming to both our desire and talent when someone, especially a future employer, recognizes that we can apply the best of ourselves with passion and have as a result the benefit all concerned. This young man’s positivism and persistence revealed his inner strength of faith in himself. How refreshing and rewarding to behold! What a blessing all around!
Please send comments and poems to michaeljhoover@gmail.com. Archived columns can be found at hooverpoet.com or at eveningsun.com. This first Friday, September 5th at the Ragged Edge in Gettysburg features every poet bringing 5 poems to share. The event has been dubbed “Five on the Fifth.”