An Encounter with Beauty

My song We Are the Dreamers sings, “Beauty’s a flower in need of showers, and time.” I’ve spent much of my life exploring the tone and texture of beauty. So, when Brandon Vaidyanathan invited me to a convening on beauty in work at Laity Lodge, I immediately resonated. Little did I know the retreat would feel like a family reunion and lead to my fullest, deepest encounter with beauty.

The journey began last Friday when I met Wayne Brezinka at San Antonio International Airport. Like two pilgrims in search of the Holy Grail, we climbed aboard a Jeep Wrangler rental and set forth! Our voyage to the canyons of Texas included pitstops at Torchy’s Tacos, Target, and Trader Joe’s.

As we drove 85 down the open road, our hearts began to open too. Sharing tales of our struggles felt as raw and real as the splattered bugs on our Jeep's narrow windshield. I knew in my spirit: this experience is no white wine reception; it’s a bourbon-shot-deep-dive into the soul. 

One week later, I’m meditating on a few key themes and questions that I wanted to share with you.

Time

Our 48-hour retreat felt timeless. One participant noted, “Time is not only about duration, but depth. One hour can feel like a year, and one year can feel like a minute.” His reflection reminded me of how the Greeks divided time in the two types: Chronos time—quantitative time—and Kairos time—qualitative time.

In clock time, our group was an infant. But somehow, the intentions behind the convening, location of the gathering, and the people that came transported us into an ancient space. We discussed how “tyranny of time,” hourly rates, and ROI frameworks often block beauty in work, and I was reminded of the above lyric from “We Are the Dreamers,” beauty needs time. How do we make time in our lives for beauty to emerge in our work? How do we help ourselves carve out that time? Do we believe it matters?

Grief

This past year, I experienced deep heartbreak. The kind that takes your breath away, makes you cry in grocery store aisles, and causes your friends to send you “just checking on you” texts. Such pain is intimate, surfacing during moments of genuine safety and acceptance. It craves comforting gestures like warm baths, lingering hugs, and the freedom to mourn.

The retreatants invited my wounded self to emerge. Through mutual vulnerability, we comforted and held each other. Wayne, our resident "grief guru," has a personal practice of grief rituals, and his life gave everyone else permission to lament unfulfilled hopes and lingering hurts. Our collective tears added to the well of knowing about beauty.

What would a grief practice look like in my own life? How does public grieving create the context for encounters with beauty?

Community

Nature is a powerful healer, and I spent much of this year mending my heart on a farm and in a forest. At some point, my pain was no longer resting in solitude, but wedging a permanent home through isolation, letting down anchors that weighed me down.

This retreat and its beautiful humans invited my grief to the surface, took time to be with me—laughing, crying, meditating—and ultimately, helped me remember:

You are not alone.

You are on your way.

You are beautiful.

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To learn more about this retreat, please read the host’s Blog Post here: https://www.beautyatwork.net/our-first-beauty-at-work-retreat/

Thank you to the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California for their generous funding of this gathering.

All Photos were shot by Louis Kim.