Why do we fear Beauty? Because Beauty points us to God. Beauty is a window to the transcendent. It stops you, affects you, speaks to your heart. Beauty is dangerous.
Beauty is not prettiness. Prettiness is decorative. Beauty is more. What’s the difference? It’s the difference between standing on a hillside watching a sunset with the wind in your hair and having fluffy clouds painted on a ceiling. They’re both aesthetically pleasant, but one of them affects your soul and the other does not. Volumes have been written to try to define “Beauty” and differentiate it from “pretty” but since you are a human, you know the difference. Knowing the difference is part of what makes you human.
Our fear comes from both inside of us and from the world around us.
We fear Beauty because we feel unworthy of it. If we participate in Beauty, by creating it in our surroundings, wearing it on our backs, or even stopping to engage with it, we step outside the day-to-day and step into that transcendent dance of something more.
In the world that we inhabit, being seen is unusual. At least, being seen outside of the carefully curated world of social media photos. To be seen is to be recognized. To be seen is to invite others to engage with you. To be seen is to be part of the world, not stand outside of it. And this being seen is not just what you put on your back or on your eyelashes – this being seen is if you engage with beauty in your front yard, or display your art, or even stop.
I know this because I do this, and I largely do it alone. I stop to watch the cattail fluff dance in the wind, backlit by the sun in a bright blue sky. I stop and smell the sweet peas in my neighbor’s yard. I smile at fallen ginkgo leaves (ah, that shade of yellow!) and butterflies and birds and bunnies and babies. I am watched, and told that I am eccentric. But this watching and telling is always with a wistful smile. My watchers want what I have, and I have the frustration of aching to share. But Beauty is dangerous, and they are afraid of what she will do to them.
We are told so often that Beauty is just prettiness (though we know it is not), and that liking prettiness is both feminine and unnecessary that it is hard to be “out” about liking things that look nice if one wishes to be taken seriously. I’ve read about professional artists having to push against this nonsense, so be assured that you and I get the trickledown effect. To love prettiness is to be weak. Well, that’s what is whispered beneath the words… so if you want respect, you can’t just love something because it is beautiful. (If you do, it is your eccentricity, and you’d best be at the top of the pyramid before you admit to it). Of course this is all lies, but we are constantly lied to in our culture.
Why do we fear Beauty? The outside world is invested in the lies that hold us apart, and Beauty can destroy a pack of lies with just a smile. Aesthetics come in cycles, and one of the cycles that has been going for the past 100 years or so is the cycle of hope and anguish. When our culture is in the grips of hope and enthusiasm, we get the Roaring 20s and the age of Aquarius and the future is so bright I gotta wear shades… when the culture is in the grip of anguish we get the disillusionment of the 70s, the cynicism of the 90s, the brutalism of the 30s. Anguish – and anger – also push us to action. Anger and anguish are true – because they speak pain. Pain is something that is being done to damage goodness. Anger and anguish are part of the fight!
As long as the cycle continues, the cycle pushes us to build and create. Whether hope or anguish, as we pursue goodness or gnash our teeth at its loss, we speak our truth. Our culture, however, denies that good exists and so our cycles have died down and turned into mush. Deny this if you will – but I haven’t seen anything really NEW in aesthetics in a very long time. It’s just retreads. We have been choked out.
We now sit in a consumerist puddle of disillusionment and ennui. We’ve forgotten how to want goodness, and limit that to economic success or slim waistline. It’s cool to be cynical. You want something aesthetic because it’s valuable, not because you like looking at it. We think that Beauty is something that is only for the rich, those who have “won”. It’s an extra, an add-on. This is baffling and frustrating for those of us who love her and drink freely from her springs. Beauty is available to all, but we have turned our backs on her.
We do this because Beauty will change us. Not just touching and running away, really engaging and choosing to be a part of Beauty. Choosing to make it, enjoy it, wear it, praise it, talk about it… all of this is anti-cynical, and only the cynical ones are worthy of our respect. We are told that loving Beauty is naive. We are told this because she is dangerous and the world is invested in our not being transformed by our interactions with her.
Why do we fear Beauty? Because Beauty will change us, and transform our world.
Why do I talk about Beauty? Because I want to see all of us, and our world, transformed.