What Is Beauty Pointing Us To?
Beauty can save the
world, I’m convinced of it. No one who finds beauty in things commits suicide or
takes a life. The need to destroy only comes when we lose sight of the
glory all around us. The opposite is also true: the need to create and protect only comes when we find
something truly wonderful. Beauty has a way of captivating the heart, and it
echoes of something deeper in the fabric of the universe. To stop and marvel at
something truly beautiful is almost to get a glimpse at something truly
eternal. The splendor of eternity is all around us. We experience beauty in relationships, beauty in a job well done,
beauty in a sunset, beauty in the forest, beauty in a person, beauty in the
ocean, beauty in architecture, art, and music… To behold beauty is to behold
the things in our world that glimmer with the majesty of the Creator.
Beauty serves as a
prophet that points us to that which makes things beautiful… and it is all around us all the
time. So, why don’t we always see it? Why are we sometimes totally oblivious to
the glory all around us? I think it's because we lose sight of the meaning behind the
beauty. We stop finding things beautiful when we turn good things into ultimate
things. A relationship full of authenticity and vulnerability is a
beautiful thing, until the relationship is poached as a resource to make you
feel alive. Working hard is a beautiful thing, until it becomes the source of
your identity. Art is beautiful until it becomes escapism. When we use things
of beauty to satisfy our souls they become restraining. The relationship feels
like bondage. The job feels like a slave master. The art becomes a gimmick.
In the movie The Tree of Life, Brad Pitt plays a
father driven by his fear of failure. He views himself as a wasted talent,
believing he could have been a renowned musician had he just lived up to his potential. Now he lives to move up in the world. His success in his career
establishes his sense of purpose… until the company he works for has to make budget
cuts, and he is presented with two options: A job no one wants, or no job at all. This humbles him. For the first time he cannot convince his soul that talent and accomplishments are all he needs for satisfaction. Because once those things are gone, what is there left for him to cling to? The rough-around-the-edges character has a moment of clarity. He says in the
narration:
"I wanted to be loved because I was great. A Big Man. But I'm nothing. Look at the glory all around us, the trees and the birds. I lived in shame. I dishonored it all and didn't notice the glory."
What was there left for him to cling to when all that establishes his sense of self is stripped away? Beauty. Why? Because, the things we find beautiful speak to something beyond themselves. Beautiful things testify about a Great Something, but they not the Thing itself. As C.S. Lewis puts it in his essay, “The Weight of Glory,”
“These things are good
images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing
themselves they turn into dumb idols breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For
they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not
found, the echoes of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have
never visited.”
I don’t believe God
creates bad things, all things created by God are blessed and good. So,
when we come across anything bad, it is really the distortion of something
sacred. Beauty can be desecrated. We lose sight of the beauty in a thing when we worship the thing
itself.
Idols are unforgiving
monsters. They promise you a world of meaning but they never deliver.
Worshiping an idol is like drinking soda while running on a hot summer day… you
keep drinking it, and it never quenches your thirst, and if you drink too
much it’ll make you sick. An idol always takes, it never gives. It makes
our souls sick, and robs us of our humanity.
So, how do we retrace
beauty when all seems ugly? I'm convinced it starts by back-tracking to when the ugly things you're facing were once beautiful. Whether it's a broken relationship, struggles at work, or addiction to escapism... relationships are good things, working
hard is a good thing, art is a good thing! These good things that may have
become desecrated can be made holy when we acknowledge them for what they are:
Vessels, prophets, diagnosticians… Signs that point to the wonder of infinity.
Beauty can be found, even
if it is a glimmer in the dust. We regain the ability to see the splendor
all around when we stop seeing it as the satisfier of our souls, and allow them to point us to
it.
