In January of 2026, one reader commented that her word of the year was ‘discipline.’ This post is for you, W., and for me, as you will see.

Discipline is training that develops self-control, obedience, or order, and it can also mean a specific branch of knowledge or study. (Merriam-Webster) It carries overtones of punishment and at first this idea put me off. Was there any beauty in discipline?

Then last week I noticed there have been two words influencing me this year. Beauty, the word I talk and write about, the word I am trying to understand better. But behind the scenes discipline has been exerting its influence on my life. I am studying a book about twelve different Christian disciplines— yes, that’s what they are called—and I finally realised it was the same word. Every so often a new ‘discipline’ is introduced. A lot of the other books I have read this year have also taken some measure of self-control. It was a kind of discipline not to push them away for something easier. With a little help, I created order in the yard – as of now a flowerbed is redone, the raspberries and asparagus are pruned. I haven’t been this ready for winter in years. There’s more that could be done, but whatever I get done between now and the snow will feel like a bonus.

Beauty seemed like it would be easy— just notice it— but the more time I spend with it, the harder it is to understand. Beauty has no ‘purpose’ in our lives. It depends on the ‘beholder’ and the meaning is always just out of my grasp. Truth, beauty, and goodness point to God, I guess, but how? By instilling wonder and awe, fear, vastness and intricacy that is more than the human mind can understand or the human spirit can bear. Beauty gives us a longing for something more and we want to keep it, own it, replicate it. To make what is obvious even more plain, we say, How beautiful! Beauty has raised more questions and I can only ponder them.

So understanding beauty has made a claim on my discipline, too.

Discipline requires a willingness to delay gratification while doing hard things. The sooner in life a person learns this, the sooner success follows in their footsteps. When we face a task greater than our power, a highly likely occurence in life, we need discipline.

Most worthwhile things are not done in a day. Many worthwhile things take years and decisions lead to decisions that send us in one direction or another. Success is not one massive good decision. It is many little decisions day after day to keep on, to keep doing the right thing, to try one more time, to not lose heart.

I ran across the term ‘difficult beauty’ recently. This means something that doesn’t appear beautiful on the surface, you need to look deeper, beyond the moment and what first meets the eye, to the meaning or the ultimate result. Discipline is a way to see this difficult beauty in action.

This old song came to me recently and it says what I am trying to say, poetically and memorably.

List to the Blacksmith

List to the blacksmith with hammer and anvil
The music is ringing from morning to night
Deftly he fashions the hot ruddy iron 
And measures the music with flashes of light.

Time is man's workshop, events are the anvil,
While life is the iron he shapes by his might
Truth is the forge and his love is the hammer
While smiles and good deeds are his flashes of light.

Thus as we labor from morning to evening 
Oh, should we not brighten with music the day;
Sending the rays of our faith-heated efforts
Far out o'er our brother's oft dim-lighted way.

List, Oh list! hear the sound,
Music from morning to night;
Music sweet, ringing now,
Music with flashes of light.
--N. Dixon Hahn

These words are a pioneer parable of discipline and beauty. Everyday people faithfully doing their everyday jobs can inspire us to have the same discipline, a discipline fleshed out in our human lives and merged with the beauty of immortal life.

You can picture the blacksmith standing in front of a roaring forge, his brawny arms bare as his will and strength, along with the uncomfortable heat, bend the iron to his needs. It is hot and dangerous work. Half-hearted blows will not shape a horseshoe or plowshare. Flashes of light that fly out at every blow of his hammer.

Of course, the scene has a misty aura of nostalgia. The decades of time from that day to this romances us. There was a time when man’s need was supplied by man’s muscle. In this long ago time, a man ‘earned his night’s repose.’ It seems it was a simpler time but what he stands for is still simple.

Today, the faith-heated efforts of ordinary people like you and me creates a music and a light to those near us. We can take much pleasure in a useful job well done, a task that requires discipline and produces beauty. The hammer of His love shapes the events of our lives to His and our own use. A committment to the job makes the blows effective. And discipline keeps us going, our eyes seeing through the difficulties to beauty beyond. We trust the forge of truth to burn away whatever is not useful. And the “firey sparks fall in showers all around.”

Thank, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought!
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from The Village Blacksmith

-Liz