Love brings out beauty

Our church group usually takes in a couple of plays a year, and this year one of them was Beauty and the Beast. (Cinderella was always my favorite Disney Classic in the past, as I could relate to the character). After seeing this musical, it will always be Beauty and the Beast.

Linda and Vic are good friends, and on my sixtieth birthday, they gave me more than a present, they captured my heart. The beautiful glass encased couple, Belle and the Beast, dancing to the theme song is sitting on my dining room table. Linda knew what this play meant to me and because I also received the CD, I am sharing the words of the beast. It describes the change that love makes.

It begins in a palace. One night a spell is cast on the prince, because of his selfishness and, for the rest of his life he is doomed to live a life of regret and deep pain, in the body of a beast. Unless, there is found a redeeming quality in him.

Love comes unexpectedly to him, her name is Belle. An appropriate name meaning beautiful. Belle understands the beast because she sees his "heart," which now changes because of his love for her. He lives to please her and gives her a present, books. They have dinner together, and the rest is as certain as the sun, (not before much suffering on the part of the beast). The words of the beast.....

If I Can't Love her, Lyrics By Tim Rice

And in my twisted face
There's not the slightest trace
Of anything that even hints at kindness
And from my tortured shape
No comfort, no escape
I see, but deep within is utter blindness

Hopeless
As my dream dies
As the time flies
Love a lost illusion
Helpless
Unforgiven
Cold and driven
To this sad conclusion

No beauty could move me
No goodness improve me
No power on earth, if I can't love her
No passion could reach me
No lesson could teach me
How I could have loved her and make her
love me too
If I can't love her, then who?

Long ago I should have seen
All the things I could have been
Careless and unthinking I moved onward

No pain could be deeper
No life could be cheaper
No point anymore if I can't love her
No spirit could win me
No hope left within me
Hope I could have loved her and that she'd
set me free

But it's not to be
If I can't love her
Let the world be done with me

Love transforms the beast back to the prince, after an heroic act. And they live happily ever after. The End.