Everything Beautiful Dies

About a year ago, I wrote a poem called “Brown Eyes.” It was a reflection on a loss that I had experienced, not of a loved one or of anything tangible, but of a dream. It went like this:

I’m sorry, Brown Eyes, I don’t know you

I painted on shades ‘til I covered the black; I walled you inside, and I can’t take it back

But I’ll show you in time what I meant

When I promised you worlds through a pen

And like magic, I spun tales of grandeur that won my heart when my heart was a child’s

But we all grow old and get tired

And you tangled in me and expired

And I tasted the grief that has haunted my dreams and made me afraid to grow older

Everything beautiful dies

I learned when I lost your brown eyes

As perhaps you can tell by my description of the lost dream, I was talking about my writing. After about ten years of pursuing a writing career day after day, I finally stepped away, feeling like I had held on with a death grip until I had strangled that thing that I had loved. Or, as the poem states, that I had kept painting on shades, trying to finally get the colors perfect, until I painted over all the black and lost the depth that it had once had.

That was the specific context of the poem, but I realized that a greater trend in my heart came through in those words, particularly at the end. “Everything beautiful dies,” I said. Just how long have I felt that way?

When I look back upon my history, I find it branded with a bittern strain of pessimism that I cooked up as a child. But I do not think that I was always a pessimist. I think that I was a dreamer, and therefore, pessimism came naturally once I saw enough of disappointment to become acquainted with fear.

“Everything beautiful dies.” Think about that. Look around at all the precious people that you know. Do you remember when you first realized that your parents would someday die? That you would someday die? And even before death comes, there is always change. Little children grow up. Relationships shift. People’s appearances change so subtly that we may not notice until a photograph reminds us that they are not as they once were. And in an age without photographs, we would have no way to hold on. Would we still be able to picture them as they were? Or would that be lost to us forever?

“Everything beautiful dies.” Think about the places that are meaningful to you, or even just the places that are familiar. Trees will be cut down, houses demolished, fields turned to subdivisions, wilderness areas overrun with hikers and regulated to the point of insanity.

“Everything beautiful dies.” Will your work be meaningful? Are any of the things that you are chasing worth it? Will your dreams that enthrall you prove to be empty when it’s all said and done? Is there really anything good on this earth, or is it all just delusion, a fantasy and wishful thinking? “Everything beautiful dies.” Is that really pessimism, or is it just reality?

I used to think all the time: “At the end of my life, with no years left ahead of me and all that I had already spent, will I look back on emptiness? Will I look back with regret?”

I was always told that the years go quickly. That lesson was supposed to make me value my time. Instead, it drove me to dread.

But again, is that pessimism or “realism”? Everything beautiful dies. You can’t really say that I’m wrong.

Oh, but wait. There’s more to the story.

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26, NIV).

And this is where my pessimism ran into some issues. This was where the thriving weed started finding good soil harder to come by, and one of its neighbors outgrew it and blocked out the sun.

Pessimism can get by pretty well on what I can see. It was born of real disappointment and real loss. But if God is real… and if that very real God is good… and if that same very real God really loves me… Suddenly, reality changes.

“Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of Me” (Matthew 11:4-6, NIV).

When reality is hope and life and power and peace and victory–when reality is life from the dead–pessimism gets exposed as foolishness. Fear of loss gets exposed as faithlessness. Beauty gets raised to life out of the ashes, and the life that we live will outlast death.

As a final note, God is merciful and tender and kind. He had compassion on me in my fear, and the path toward hope is one that He has let me take my time in following. Furthermore, it is in His continued goodness toward me that I have found the proof to believe in hope. He does not demand an immediate pretense of faith. Lean on Him. Watch Him. He’s in no rush, and at times your eyes may not see it, but He will prove to be good.

Thank you for reading, my friends! God bless you.