“…had I not believed that after death the life of the soul remains with the consequences of our acts, a belief which Epicurus rejected; and I asked: If we were immortal and lived in unending bodily pleasure, with no fear of losing it, why should we not be happy? What else should we be seeking for? I did not realize that that is exactly what shows our great wretchedness. For I was so submerged and blinded that I could not think of the light of moral goodness and of a beauty to be embraced for its own sake—beauty seen not by the eye of the flesh, but only by inward discernment.”—Saint Augustine, Confessions
They walked together along streets of the ancient city, color of sky in evening change rosing hue of the white stone ruins. They blushed in the evening glow, warm and affected, as if sky gave compliment to their beauty as a man to aged woman, reminded back to her beauty and many endearments when courted and complimented far ago in youth.
Together, they walked, departing from the city’s heart—a city within a city—where so much of history held as origin and foundation.
Of what they’d seen, they still thought of more; words and writings, histories resurrected from ancients that read as real and true, unchanged in modern day, and each wondered how such stories found and why they spoke so true to hearts in living now.
“That last part, is that how you see me?” Emma asked.
Ryan blushed. “Not exactly. Moral goodness and a beauty to be embraced for its own sake…yes, I believe myself to discern that in you. But I am not blind to the other, and I wouldn’t lie and say that I don’t.
Maybe, sometimes, God uses the first to attract and fix our attention, and in its hold, we become to truly see the other existing within; something when still adrift and unaffected we would have never otherwise seen.”
“And is it only the latter, now, that affects your spirit?”
Another hesitation, “…I wouldn’t say that either. It is a blessing to possess each of the two, beauty on many levels…”
Emma smiled, blushing as Venus in evening light watching over them from above: as sculpted statue adorning ancient structure; and, too, in celestial body glowing from afar, near to moon, brightest sign in eastern sky, illumination-cast of light from the falling sun.