Beauty

A Few Thoughts from Bren
August 2018

Aristotle wrote, “beauty occurs when all parts work together in harmony so that no one part draws unjust attention to itself” and “the chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness.”

My recent trip to Italy has me reflecting on beauty and what an important spiritual food it is. I got to see so much beauty — frescoes, sculptures, paintings, architecture, music, fountains, Michelangelo’s The Pieta, the Pantheon, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, even the Roman Colosseum though some horrible things happened within it. I experienced beauty and was nourished by it

Beauty opens a door and invites you in.

It doesn’t have to be physical beauty. When I visited Koinonia for the first time, there were buildings in need of repair and a coat of paint here and there would have helped. Nonetheless, I remember thinking “this is beautiful.” Maybe it was those few minutes spent in the museum hearing Ellie Castles’ story about the commitment of the members in the early days. Perhaps it was the far off glimpse of the pecan orchards — we had no time that day to go for a walk among the trees.

This encounter with something beautiful led me to read Clarence Jordan’s books and to listen to his recordings. I was fed.

A writer I admire, Robert Barron, offers that of the ultimate values — beauty, goodness and truth — beauty is the most powerful, the most alluring, the most winsome, and can draw us in. When it does, then one can move from beauty to the good and then to the true. Beauty can open the heart so one can come to know goodness and truth.

I confess that too often I am distracted and don’t see the beauty around me. But I have returned from my trip desiring a steady diet of beauty. I live at a beautiful place. Fine works of literature fill our library. We sing often. I want to be aware of the beauty of the lyrics and hear the beauty of the melody. I want to take long, slow walks through the pecan orchards more frequently or I simply want to stand in our garden and watch the organic vegetables grow.

And the incredible people who come here … I want to be more aware of who inspires me and let their inspiration work on me. Just last week we had 47 young people from the Bruderhof Foxhill Community visit us. They were full of joy and their work ethic left us speechless. They had talents and gifts and freely gave of themselves. They were beautiful.

I have come home with my mind on beauty and how we all can thrive from this spiritual food. Who inspires you? Do you look for beauty? What feeds your spiritual life? What is beautiful to you? How can we incorporate beauty into our everyday lives, in big ways and small ways, so we may be fed and come to know goodness and truth? We are starving and we need food — good, wholesome, spiritual food. May beauty fill us up. May it spur us on to goodness, truth, and a full life.