Thomas Aquinas once wrote that “To know a thing is to awaken to its depth, complexity and presence.” According to Aquinas, each thing (and each of us as well) secretly and profoundly “desires to be known.” My passion has always been teaching and learning, and in Aquinas’ remarks we see how central beauty is when we teach and learn. Beauty is the depth at which we see something, meaning that we aren’t seeing the person/student/client through an old, cloudy “image” of who we think they are. As the philosopher Simone Weil said, paying attention to another is an act of love.
Sort of like watching a flower blossom.