10/05/2018
When we look at a sunrise, or a sunset, we see its beauty. When we look across the mountains we see their grandeur and beauty as well. The night skies filled with stars, and all of God’s creation bring us wonder and awe, but it has also impresses us with its beauty to the point of tears. Science argues the creation of the universe, but who can argue the beauty we feel and see in it, and the wonder at the divine hand that causes us to know beauty from nothingness.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV
How is it that we experience beauty? The best that man can do in his attempt to describe this feeling, that leads us to great emotion, is to say that it is something that “pleases the aesthetic senses”, or it is something that “makes us happy”, How bland are these descriptions, and how insufficient.
Beauty is beholding those things around us that are “good”, as God has said they are, and feeling his presence in them. Beauty can also be seeing those things we have created and feeling the presence of ourselves, God, and His inspiration intermingled within them. This feeling that comes over us is part and parcel of our intense and undeniable need to experience God... it flows from our very soul, and is the manifestation of a divine mystery. It joins together inspiration and creativity with the very nature of God and causes His presence (whether admitted or not) to well up in us. It is that intangible thing, that causes our heart to swell and almost burst as it thrills us. It is the Word of God reverberating in us as He says “It is good!”
“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”
Psalms 139:14 ESV
So throughout time we have turned to the poets to describe the emotion we feel, and yet even in their words, which in themselves are beautiful and moving by the inspiration of God, we find inadequacy... and the quest to understand it continues. Listen to Emily Dickinson...
There’s a certain Slant of light
By Emily Dickinson
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –
We are incapable of defining the essence of beauty, of love, or even of loveliness, because this would mean that we must define God Himself. So we seek to understand creation, and what we can about the fixed and often delicate processes there, but we can never capture the grandeur of God that created and called these things “good”. The best we can do is feel our hearts swell, and the warm tears on our cheeks as we sob in awe at His handiwork. The best we can do is love, be loved, and tussle as one amidst the mystery, and stare at God in one another’s eyes, and all of creation.
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
Romans 1:19-20 ESV
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for the feelings that well up in me as I witness beauty and love. I thank you Lord for your presence within me that shouts “It is Good!” at every sunset, every star in the sky, every mountain, every child’s face, every sigh of my lover’s breath, and at all of your creation. I thank you for placing your breath of beauty within me, and the touch of you that comes in love with it. I praise you Holy Father for allowing me to experience your presence in these things that surround me, and for maintaining the mystery of them cupped in the palm of your hand. No matter how hard I try to understand you, all that I can manage is to understand some law or revelation concerning your creation... and yet in the midst of that I smell your scent, and hear your breathing... and wonder in awe at how great you are, my God. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my creator, the one who binds me with yourself by your own beautiful breath, and by the love with which you share your divine mystery with me. Praised be your name in all things, and forever.
“And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.”
Genesis 1:4 ESV
Rich Forbes