In this world there is much beauty, but a great deal of it is on the surface, with a lot of unglamorous and rather dark layers to it underneath. It is understandable that most people who wish to be positive and avoid flailing in the darkness only wish to preserve their peace of mind by dealing with the surface. I do not think them evil for being superficial; we all have to choose whether we can handle the grim reality of life or whether we just want to deal with the safer shallow end of the pool. We have to know what we can handle and what we cannot, and respect our decisions and others about that.

There are many types of appreciation that we can have for someone or something. I would like to talk about two of them today. One type of appreciation that we have for someone or something is in their performance, or what we judge to be the reality of their lives. To the extent that this is an appreciation that is earned and real, it is to be treasured. All too often, though, we project images of strength and happiness that are not genuine, and so we are faced with the bitterness of wondering whether we are appreciated for who we really are or for a lie. As long as we are unsure that we are being appreciated for the reality, we gain little enjoyment out of it, because we feel the need to keep up an image that does not reflect the reality. And yet because we fear the mask slipping, it is all too easy to feel the need to keep on faking it.

On the other hand, we can appreciate something for potential. There are plenty of risks in this choice, if we do not appreciate the present reality enough, and simply want to tear everything down and start again. Human beings, however broken we may be, must be respected for who we are. Obviously, most of us could use some improvement, but as beings that improvement must be done in a rather gentle manner, rather than being treated as a fixer upper house, or a slum area to be demolished and reconstructed all shiny and new. As human beings we grow best when we use our mistakes and our past experiences to fuel our growth. Maybe we will never be glamorous or new, but we will have a charm and a beauty in our depth and in being real and genuine.

Ideally, we should appreciate and be appreciated by others for both potential and present state. Being appreciated as we are gives us encouragement that we are on the right path, even if we are not perfect. Being appreciated for what we may become gives us something to work toward, a vision to achieve, which is all the better if it is a vision of our own choosing based on our own talents, passions, and life history. And the same is true of the world around us. If we only appreciate the present (or the past), we have no vision of how things can improve or what a better future looks like. If we only appreciate the future, we have no gratitude for what we have been given here and now, nor any respect for what now is.

There is much about our world that is broken, but there is often a poignant beauty in the brokenness, in the way that our great art is often created by deeply troubled souls, in the way that a tender and delicate bloom can rise in the most adverse circumstances. Such beauty, even if it is passing and somewhat fragile, reminds us that the drive for goodness and wholeness does not depend on ease and comfort and any kind of experience in knowing what it is like to be either innocent or whole. And it is that longing to be whole that gives such beauty to the world as exists in these dark times, a longing that takes the frustrations and suffering of life and turns it into art, reminding us that all is not lost even in the most trying of times.