what is beautiful?

When you say something is beautiful, what does that mean? How do you decide something is beautiful? Does it have to be a finished product, finely tuned, everything in its place? Does is have to sound just right, no missed notes, does it fit? Or are you one of the few who sees beauty in potential? Can you look at someone or something and see the beauty to come?
I went to church last night. My girlfriend's dad preached. Now he is not a "pastor" or an evangelist, you wouldn't see him on t.v or hear him on the radio, but I liked it. The simplicity of the message and delivery was where I could understand it very well. He talked about Jesus, the carpenter. He talked about how a carpenter was a very respectable job. He told us how a lot of people depended on carpenters because so much of the things they need, he provided. But the coolest thing of all was how he described the way the carpenter looks at the wood he is working with.
A tree is beautiful when it is in full bloom, when you can see all of its leaves and their color. But what about when that tree has been cut down, had all of its limbs cut off and nothing is left but the bare trunk? What about when they are piled up on a trailer on their way to the mill? We wouldn't call that beautiful, but the carpenter would. He said that the carpenter could look at a crooked piece of wood, with all of its splits and knots and see straight through to the finished product. Just by looking and handling the wood, he already knew how beautiful it was going to be.
Then he told us how we are like that wood. How Jesus can and does see straight through the impurities to the potential beauty we possess. No matter how ugly our life may be, how much junk we clutter up, how much stuff we get addicted to, he sees our beauty that He intended us to show. All we have to do is ask the carpenter to do his work and let the beauty show.