The day dawned bright and blue. The music of my mother and sister filled my small unit, later to be added to the music of more women – beautiful women – gathering together to celebrate a birthday of another beautiful woman.

What makes women beautiful? Let me tell you that it is not their hair or eyes or teeth or fingers or figures.

Women are beautiful when they laugh together, turning autumn to springtime with the warmth of the sound.

Women are beautiful when they hold each other in strong, capable, gentle hands. Each embrace, or shoulder squeeze, or twirl of hair around affectionate finger, a monument to the loveliness of community.

Women are beautiful when they speak – with stories and affirmations spilling out of open hands and hearts and minds. There is beauty in their authentic example of the power of passionate and animated storytelling.

Women are beautiful when they share. Selflessly giving of time and money and gifts to bless one another with no expectation of return.

Women are beautiful when they pray. When they ask God to be present as they gather. When they acknowledge the immense Love under Whom we all live and laugh and love.

What a wonder to sit at the same table with so many of the women who have shaped me, and also women I have only ever seen at a glance. A wonder to know that we are bound together by the Love that makes all women (and all humanity) wonderful.