NOTES ON THE NEED FOR BEAUTY is Ruth Gendler's reflection on the nature of beauty from all aspects. She compares it to building bridges by connecting the senses, soul, contemplation, expression, ourselves and the world. In essence, no quality of beauty is left unturned. 

As a believer myself that beauty begins on the inside and can't help but to show itself outward, I'd have to say she did a great job on making me contemplate what I as a human being often consider ordinary or mundane and sometimes unimportant non-issues that I  tend to take for granted each second of the day. She made me rethink the phrase "Beauty is only skin deep" by the reminder that just like water beauty is essential to living out life by taking the time to slow down, allow all of our senses to be involved which presents us with a better perception we wouldn't otherwise conclude. For me personally, it's like not being able to recognize the answer for being too focused on the question. It just goes back to the saying that we make life more complicated than what it was ever meant to be. And let's just be honest: For a whole lot of us, if stress isn't involved we think we aren't accomplishing much of anything. 

Out of all the insights of this book, what really stayed with me was when Gendler asked the question "Who gave you your eyes?" What I got from that was our eyes were made for more than just seeing what we see with the naked eye. And when I think about people who are blind that makes an awful lot of sense to me. I think about it like this: Who teaches the blind to see? And, yet, blind people can describe beauty in such a profound way that it would leave most of us speechless, if not ashamed for not "seeing" the connection on our own. 

Quoting a passage from Gendler: "Sight leads us to insight. A lookout is a position to look from, where we can see all around us for a great distance. From looking out we develop an outlook, a point of view, a perspective, a way of looking out past what we see to the unknowable future." 

Personally I see best by observation. After reading the above passage I decided to make it a point of taking my time observing everything around me and consciously allow all of my senses to be involved so that I don't miss what I might otherwise be too focused to really appreciate seeing.  

All in all I'd say NOTES ON THE NEED FOR BEAUTY is a book you can't hurry through, because I can guarantee you will miss seeing all the clues that put us in tune to the beauty all around us.