As I sat in the waiting lounge of Malaga Airport, on the evening of our return to

Bristol, I saw a very beautiful young woman approaching. She passed me by, and for a moment, as our eyes met, I experienced a sense of something poignant. I was overcome with an aching in my soul, as I struggled for words to express what I was feeling. After boarding the aircraft, I sat down in my seat and experienced again that moment of poignancy, as I noticed that the woman had also just boarded the aircraft and was approaching me. Loveliness swept by me, like the flutter of a delicate wing on the wind, and as soon as she passed my aisle, I grabbed my pen and journal. I had to capture what it was that I was experiencing in that moment.

I thought about it for a little, and I decided that perhaps we all yearn after beauty. When we see it, whenever and however it shows itself, it creates an aching within us, perhaps because we believe instinctively that we were made for a state and a place of continual beauty. It is as if something is hardwired in us to express the value – the worth of what we have experienced – to worship. I thought, also, that is possible to find ourselves burning, so strongly, with desire, (in our ache for total fulfilment) – the desire to be continually surrounded by beauty, that we can allow ourselves to live lustfully – ever grasping at whatever form of beauty we feel drawn to, and at every given opportunity. Perhaps this explains some of the rationalizing we have used in this world to justify illicit sexual relationships – that it seems as if we deserve to be satisfied just because we so long for fulfilment. Yet what we have grasped at of beauty is never enough to truly satisfy us. In this world, even if we get to have what we lust after, the initial thrill soon dies away and is sooner or later replaced by disillusionment. If we delve long and hard enough, we come to realize that nothing that this fallen world has to offer us will ever truly satisfy. We yearn to be able to drink long and deep from this well of beauty, but then to never have to be thirsty again. This is because what we are really seeking is the Source of all beauty – beauty itself, if you will. And that Source is God. Only a sincere relationship with Him will ever bring true fulfilment, and slake our thirst.