I have a mountain of perfectly usable quotes about Christian living, but I wouldn’t dare approach the subject as a paper topic. I don’t have the experience. I don’t have a thesis. I’m eighteen years old, a sophomore who’d leave her college at the drop of a hat; I don’t have any white hairs of wisdom to scratch onto paper. 

I hate that I feel I should begin this with a definition of beauty. We know it when we see it. The kaleidoscope of amber and gold a sunset paints across the sky. A horse running. Wind through tall grass. The sound of laughter. Dodging social interaction earlier today, I stumbled across a line of poetry so beautiful I stopped and read it again three or four times, just to savour the words in meaning and sound. When real, objective beauty is set before us, we know it well.