“Beauty will Save the World”: Examining a Life Well-lived

“Beauty will save the world” (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

I think its a somewhat overly-quoted phrase, but if you don’t believe it with your whole heart and live it out you need to hear it again!

I was re-reading a section of Roger Scruton's “The Soul of the World” the other day. In it, he discusses the ornamentation of ancient temples:

"A temple is not simply a work of load-bearing stone. The column is carved, fluted, adorned with plinth and capital, crowned by a frieze or an arch, or joined in heavenly vaults where stone achieves the lightness of the sky, through moldings and decorative details the stone is filled with shadow, acquires a translucent appearance, as the face is translucent to the spirit within." (P. 124)

That translucency, that showing forth-a spark of the spirit within, points to the deeper reality behind the ordinary. These are no mere stones. It begs the question why? Why would humans go to the vast extent they did to create such an otherworldly structure? In doing so, they celebrate what is of value to them. They mark what is of importance by the time spent, the effort made, the attention to detail, the dignity bestowed upon the otherwise ordinary stone by the crown of beauty. In a world without deeper meaning it would be madness, a waste of time.

The temple's beauty is not just for us! Though it is a gift to us in that it stands as a reminder of what is of value, its beauty is also worship. It glorifies that one for who's or what's purpose it was made.

We, who were made to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) within the temple of our bodies (1 Cor. 6:19), have the opportunity to 'adorn' what is of value to us, bringing order and beauty to our lives. Where do we place our time and attention? Everything within our sphere of influence can be made an offering, that is the point of the temple, to make a sacrifice of praise.

Are we caring for our sphere of influence?

Keeping our spaces clean and beautiful, our cars oiled, our dog groomed, our bodies filled with nourishment and well-rested, our people loved and cared-for?

-> Taking care of things, big and small, demonstrates our appreciation for the gift that they are.

-> Expending our effort to make them beautiful in their own way 1) brings glory to God, because it reflects the beauty of God when things live/operate as he made them able. 2) Makes them something you can share: Your clean house is a space you can welcome others and give them the gift of a restful domain. Your taken-care-of dog will live longer and bless more people with his enjoyable-ness. Your oiled car will take your more places where you can do good to the world. Your well-rested self is more of a gift to others than your tired grumpy self, and your well-nourished health radiates the beauty that befits the dignity of a son or daughter of God. Hopefully loving and caring for people is self-explanatory. :)

-> Do we have so much we can’t take care of everything well? The root of this could be multiple things- maybe we literally have too much and need to purge- keep what is most important and get rid of what you don’t need, let it be a blessing to someone else. Maybe its too many things that take our time. Too many commitments. I used to have a huge problem with this. What finally opened my eyes to the issue was hearing someone say that overcommitment is a form of pride. It’s trying to operate out of your own strength in spheres of influence that God did not ask you to take on. Do you have extra things because they are fun/exciting? See how these things take time from you living the priorities in your life to the fullest. Do you have a hard time saying no/think something needs you or won’t be able to thrive if you leave? That’s pride speaking - you want to be a people-pleaser, or you think you’re so important you’re irreplaceable. It may well be from a well-intentioned place, such as not wanting to leave a volunteer work or a bible-study where you’re a key voice. But if you’re filling a spot you’re not meant to be in, your preventing the person who is actually called to that from taking that role on, and your neglecting the work God’s asked you to accomplish well. Whatever the reason, a cluttered home, a cluttered calendar, mis-ordered priorities, these things prevent us stepping into the order God invites us to, and in fact demands of us when he asks for a complete offering of our lives.

How does beautiful living save the world?

I once heard the Kansas City director of Vocations say something along the lines of “if everyone found and lived out their vocation, the hungry would be fed, the sick would be cared for, every need would be met with love”. I’ve probably completely changed the quote since this was over 8 years ago and I didn’t write it down, but that’s the essence of the message that’s stuck with me all these years. I believe he’s talking here about the Universal call to holiness, the invitation to sainthood, to glorify God by the offering of our whole lives.

Pope Benedict XVI once said ‘Art and the Saints are the greatest apologetic for our faith.’ And its so true! The beauty of a life intentionally lived in union with God radiates the good promises of God. And beauty is the emblem that shines on all that is true.

So it works in all ways! The beautiful offering of our entire lives, all that we are and do:

->Invites us into worship, that for which we are made.

->Showers the world with the life of God; his blessings pour forth from the faithful who become his vessels to love the world. Priorities are attended to with care, nothing slips through the cracks.

->Stands as a beacon of light, showing forth the goodness of the eternal hidden within the ordinary. This gives hope and intense meaning to the simplest of things.

Healing the Eyes of the Heart: Developing Sacramental Vision

‘We Do Not See Rightly’

My all-time favorite movie is a somewhat obscure Netflix original kid’s movie, ‘The Little Prince’, based off the kid’s book written in 1943 in French by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In such simple, poetic words and imagery it conveys profound truths; every time I watch it I’m struck by new layers of meaning.

One of the lines reads “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Although knowledge of Saint-Exupéry’s personal devotion or adherence to a specific faith is somewhat vague, his line is pretty spot on with a Catholic understanding of spiritual theology and sacramentality.

The Theology of the Body Institute recently published a book, God is Beauty: A Retreat on the Gospel and Art, by Karol Wojtyla. It recovers an original retreat for artists given by Wojtyla before he became Pope John Paul II, coupled with reflections and commentary on the connections between the themes of beauty and the Theology of the Body.

In it, Christopher West expounds on the teachings expressed by Wojtyla: that due to original sin, we do not see rightly. We are blinded to the divine plan for human life. (God is Beauty: A Retreat on the Gospel and Art, Karol Wojtyla, P. 75)

The Eyes of the Heart

Our blindness comes from a certain disconnect between what we perceive in our minds and the core of our being, our ‘heart’, wherein God dwells as a result of baptism. Instead of hearing the voice of God in our hearts, we hear what we perceive on a surface level. Instead of seeing and understanding with the eyes of faith, we see from whatever framework has formed in our minds due to our circumstances. Channels of the brain are formed in accordance with what we see, hear, and repeat as true to ourselves. We build up a system of beliefs based on our ‘vision’ of how the world is. Habitually we will return to these patterns of thought even though we may intellectually understand our faulty thinking. For example I may understand on a knowledge level that God is with me in all things, yet in a moment of hardship I return to a pattern of thinking “God isn’t with me and I must find my own way out of my circumstance.”

To this the scriptures say “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). And this renewal must take place from the inside out, not by our own strength, not by willing ourselves to see rightly. It must be by a humble return to God, a vulnerability before him, allowing him to broaden and deepen our vision as he illumines the truth in the midst of our circumstances.

Channels of Grace

The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives this definition of grace: “Grace is a participation in the life of God” (CCC. 1997).

This means that avenues of grace are places we actually experience the life of God: Prayer, the Sacraments, and sacramentals. These are given to us as sure places we can encounter him, and EXPERIENCE his life. And what does this encounter really do? Well, in a word, everything! An encounter with God is an encounter with truth itself, beauty itself, goodness itself. In beholding God we behold a true vision, we ‘see rightly’. And the more continually we return to this true vision, the more our minds are aligned to it, our sight is healed, and we are free to operate from our core wherein God dwells without our brain’s patterns holding us captive. This is when outward transformation happens (over time of course, and by the grace of God)- a person takes on the life of Christ and becomes a living icon. The person’s will becomes one with Christ’s will and the Father’s will. He becomes Christ’s vessel of grace, a new living witness, a sacramental, a ‘sign’ of what the life of God looks like. This is the calling for each of us, an invitation to sanctity, total transformation from the inside out.

I could ramble about this for a while, I mean it’s just jaw-dropping when you stop and think about it, nothing less than the point of our existence! But in the interest of succinct-ness I’ll save the rambles for other blogs and move to one last point:

Surrounding ourselves in truth, beauty, goodness

In this journey of transformation, what is there to do but surround ourselves by grace?! Christ is the Good Shephard who will lead us by the hand, for he knows our hearts better than we know ourselves. He will unfold the layers over our hearts steadily and in perfect timing, with just the right circumstances tailored to our needs. We must simply turn to him, seek him. He is always there, always waiting, knocking, ready for that encounter.

And how shall we turn to him? RUN to sources of grace. Even when we don’t see the results we want immediately we can always trust God is at work in us, and isn’t it enough to be in his presence? The clearest sources of grace are prayer and the sacraments. Pray with infallible truth, sit with the scriptures, read and learn about the traditions of the Church.

Secondly there are millions of channels of grace all around us in ‘sacramentals’. All things bearing truth, beauty, and goodness - signs of the eternal all around us, stamped into creation. If we really want to cooperate with the truth that grace presents to us, we must actively counter the unhelpful patterns of thinking in our minds - the direct result of the information we feed ourselves through our senses. If we’re surrounded by negativity, ugliness, lies or even partial-truths, these will feed into our thought patterns and become the tools of the enemy in a war over our perception of reality. Naturally, surrounding ourselves with good things provides access points for God to reach us, and through the discipline of what we allow to enter our minds we will develop what Christopher West refers to as ‘sacramental vision’ (God is Beauty: A Retreat on the Gospel and Art, Karol Wojtyla, P. 190), where by God’s grace we begin to perceive his presence all around us. He “Opens the eyes of the blind!” (Psalm 146:8).

Contrasts

The duller the grays, the brighter the highlights appear, so much more vivid and impactful. Not the brightly painted canvas, but the one painted gray with a burst of color, will strike the viewer as a burst of light.

The darker the night, the more radiant the day.

The colder the winter, the more you relish that Springtime melt.

The more painful an experience of suffering, the more fully you appreciate the peace and healing that follows.

Perhaps so too the more of our life that is colored dull by hardship makes the masterpiece that is the whole of our life shine when colored by the brightness of faith. There is no saint who does not suffer.

A Branch Communicates

A tree branch- a line. A set of lines.

Lines communicate.

Frenzied lines, calm lines, hyper lines, yawning lines, worried lines, dignified lines…can you picture them? Can you draw them? Can you find them in nature?

I love branches, the lines and shapes they make. I love what they communicate- many truths written all around us.

Within the art you find the artist- he brings himself to what he makes, there is none but he who could make what he did, with all his life experience poured out through those lines.

Someone drew those lines in the branches-poured himself out- what can we know of him?

A Few Words

It is not prose, but poetry that invites one deeper.

Fewer words, not more.

Perhaps prose, in its attempt to be more comprehensive, treats its subject like a specimen under study, then presents its findings as if it was all there is to know.

But poetry preserves the mystery, offering a glimpse, nothing more. Capturing the beauty, the essence, but by its briefness leaves one wanting- it is an invitation.

Out of respect for the greatness truth, it must be treated with wonder, explored in humility.

A ‘theology on its knees’ to quote Hans Urs von Balthazar.