Lodged amid the asymmetry of illness & injury caregivers & their patients seek homeostasis. Our blood must contain the right levels of red & white blood cells. Our legs must be about the same length or the spine, struggling for symmetry, may become sclerotic. 

   But, asymmetry becomes the body as well. A handsome face becomes much less so if the right and left halves are identical. Most people arrange their hair unevenly by parting it on one side. 

   Sports, particularly Olympic events, love symmetry. Yet, the highest beauty emerges in the gold medal performances that feature the asymmetric moves of the legendary runners, swimmers & gymnasts. The greatest transform sport into art by channeling the dreams of the divine.  

   What about the soul? "Something in us senses and knows how perfectly the contours of the soul fit the divine embrace," John O'Donohue wrote in Beauty. "It is the deepest dream of the soul to be in the intimacy of Divine Beauty." 

   This is what happens when the vibrations of the heart find their match. Fix your gaze on expressions of art and feel the simultaneous quickening & calming in your soul. Watch the results of an oral surgeon's successful treatment of a facial deformity.

   Yet, God loves our asymmetry. That is why the dream of lover & beloved, of complimentary souls matched to each other,  shines so richly. 

   Because this lover's dream breathes the air of the cosmos it can never be static. It is the dynamism of relationship, the move from symmetry to asymmetry to quantum states that defies description, that takes our breath away & keeps us wondering. 

   Something in our mind fights this. Why not portray the calla lilies in their original beauty? Why convert them to black & white? Above all, why toss a couple rose petals into the picture?

   Something in our soul understands. 

-Reverend Erie Chapman

 photos by Erie