Susan Durber on a life with beauty

Since ever I can remember I have been moved by beauty. For a reason I once couldn’t name, I found that seeing something beautiful always made me at once deeply happy and filled with longing. And beauty has always spoken to me of God. I have found God in beautiful places, in wonderful music, in art and icon, in ancient and in modern churches, on coastal paths and in fragrant gardens, as well as in kindly and joyful human faces.

Since school days I have loved that poem by Manley Hopkins that begins ‘Glory be to God for dappled things’ and ends with ‘He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him’…

Susan Durber is a member of the Landsker Pastorate in Pembrokeshire, and World Council of Churches President from Europe

Image: Public Domain

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This is an extract from an article published in the Issue 4 – 2025 edition of Reform

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