Dear Friends,
“Why do we hunger for beauty?” asks Steve Bell in his song of the same name.
In our mechanistic, narcissistic society, we have come to see beauty as subjective and optional – an unnecessary perk to our existence. At the very least, this understanding is shortsighted. At the worst, it is actually damaging to a life of faith if we fail to see the value of beauty.
In a brief but enlightening essay entitled “Why We Hunger For Beauty,” Francis X. Maier writes: “Beauty is the forgotten element of human dignity and free societies. We need beauty to spark our imagination, to guide our scientific intuitions, and to see God’s reality, clearly and directly. Beauty reminds us that higher things do exist; that we can know, and live in, the light of truth; and that we can reflect that light to promote the common good. And that work of living and reflecting the light belongs to each of us.”
These thoughts generate at least two good questions. First, am I taking any time to see the beauty that is all around me? Second, does the beauty lead me to my creator and redeemer in a grateful and humble way?
There is beauty all around us. It takes many forms, but is easily visible to the one who would see it. Consider the season that is soon to come to an end when the lushness of summer gives way to the barrenness of winter through the colours and textures of fall. Solomon goes so far as to say that “God has made everything beautiful in its time.“
My friends, are you looking for beauty? Do you need to establish a discipline that enables you to do so? And, when you recognize beauty, do you contemplate it? Do you let it point you to the One who makes it beautiful?
During the spring of 1863, Folliot Sandford Pierpoint, a young British aristocrat with a sensitive spirit sat on a hill near his native city of Bath, overlooking the Avon River valley and its surrounding hills. The grandeur of the view led him to ponder. God‘s gifts in creation and in the church. Here are his thoughts as he recorded them.
For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies,
for the love which from our birth over and around us lies.
Refrain:
Christ, our Lord, to you we raise this, our hymn of grateful praise.
For the wonder of each hour of the day and of the night,
hill and vale and tree and flower, sun and moon and stars of light, [Refrain ]
For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth, and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild, [Refrain]
For yourself, best gift divine, to the world so freely given,
agent of God's grand design: peace on earth and joy in heaven. [Refrain]
Blessings!
Doug