THE NATURE OF TRUE BEAUTY [F, 5-8-20]

“DAILY” DEVOTIONAL: Seeking the Spirit

THE NATURE OF TRUE BEAUTY     [F, 5-8-20]

I don’t remember how I came across Lin Yutang’s sweeping novel, A Leaf in the Storm. I suspect it was one of those happy serendips, where you’re browsing the shelves at the library, and see a particular cover or title or author name, and you think, “I’ll just take that one, too, and see what it’s like.” I miss being able to do that these days.

I picked that particular book off the shelf a long time ago, and I may not remember the story quite correctly, but there is one scene that has stayed with me.

The story is set in China. The “leaf” is a beautiful young woman who is already in rather good circumstances but wants to climb even higher. She knows that her beauty is her passport up, so she spends a lot of time on it.

Then the “storm” comes, one of those turmoils because war lords want to move up the power ladder. Her whole world is turned upside down. She loses everything. She is a refugee on the road, looking for any place that is safe. Her beauty doesn’t mean a thing.

As she wanders down a road, she sees a peasant woman working in a rice field. She sees the woman’s bare legs, sunk in the mud of the field. They are not shapely. But the young woman has an epiphany as she watches the other woman work. “Those are beautiful legs. That is real beauty, for those legs are doing what they are supposed to do.”

JRMcF