Some people can take immense pleasure from the smallest things. My mother is one such. No matter how hard the day or how great life’s problems, even when she was homeless, seeing a butterfly or the first ladybird so she could make a wish, brings a smile to her face. I always think of such people in terms of All Quiet On The Western Front when the soldier reaches out on the blasted blood-soaked mud pile of ground to touch a coloured butterfly that has wandered into the battlefield. As if beauty has a call all her own that cannot be denied.
I wonder too why some people fail to see this beauty. I can understand people are too busy. I can understand that in some places beauty may be hard to find but some people see, and ignore. Like the man I knew who had to have an apple tree cut down to make way for an extension and he said ‘it’s just an apple-tree’.
The people who can see, like my mother, are gifted. They can tap into a fount of well-being and they never lose their inner child. They are neither insensitive nor too sensitive. They just understand so much more about creation than religions have ever thought or ever taught.