Beauty is a window to the Transcendent

We all crave Beauty.  And our lives saturate us in faux-beauty.  It’s like feeding a starving man a stack of Pringles instead of an honest potato.   It’s gotten so that we conflate one with the other.  And yet.  And yet.  Beauty, because of its ability to show us transcendence, cannot truly be counterfeited.

We hunger for that touch of the wild, the touch of the pure, the touch of the reality-beyond-reality that true Beauty brings us.   The hunger for Beauty cannot be fed by anything except Beauty itself.    The hunger for Beauty is part of our hunger for God.

So they ask us to define Beauty – is it red lips or pink, roses or eagles or the sound of a violin?  And the answer is … perhaps.  Because Beauty is a window, how can you define it by what you see?  The view is ever-changing.  The definition of Beauty is in the piercing of your heart, the joy that robs you of breath, the definition of Beauty is found in the soul – not in the mind.

Because Beauty opens us to God, opens us to our desperate hunger for His presence in our lives, Beauty is important.  Beauty invites the observer into a place where he can experience awe, can be touched by that which is outside of himself, therefore the creation of Beauty is an important pastime.

Because Beauty is transcendent, it is not always easy to create.  But if we cannot create Beauty, we can at least reduce ugliness.  We can repudiate lies.  We can restore order.  Beauty is true.  It is in truth.  Falseness can never be beauty.

I cannot imagine a culture more fed to the gills with faux-beauty than our own.  The battle to create Beauty, in small things or in large, is important.   Our culture is Laodicean at its core.

Revelation 3:17  Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked,

Feeding the hunger for the Transcendent God by opening the window of Beauty and letting His light shine through is a worthy goal, and one in which we can all share.

Pursue Beauty.  Pause and give Awe room in your life.  Allow the sight of the Almighty to transform your countenance, to fill you with joy.   Allow yourself to become Beauty, that others can see Him in you.

Beauty is an intrinsic good.

3 Comments Add yours

  1. Betsy Fritts says:

    Beautiful words of truth that cause me to ponder the beauty of Him in the midst of ashes around us.

    1. hearthie says:

      thank you Betsy! I’m so glad you came to visit. 🙂

  2. info says:

    Beauty is the refracted radiance of God’s Glory. And even the pure radiance of God is the Perfection of Beauty(Psalm 50:2).

    As the infinity of God’s Beauty makes the Beauty of Zion perfect. For such is his radiance.

Leave a Reply