In Search of Beauty

Is beauty an image? A reflection? A perception? An emanation? An illumination?

Ralph Waldo Emerson was definitely onto something when he wrote:  

No reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty. 

Beauty, in its largest and profoundest sense, is one expression for the universe. 

God is the All-Fair. 

Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All. 

But beauty in nature is not ultimate. 

It is the herald of inward and eternal beauty...

And I would add: 

This herald of an inward and eternal beauty calls to the souls of men 

to come and enter into a relationship with the author of all beauty,

the Creator Himself. 
For we are His image bearers. 

We are beings made in His image and stamped with an indelible longing 

for a grace and beauty that would transform us from within...

Can I get an Amen?