The Idea of Beauty

As I gaze out through my office window early in the morning I love to watch the leaves change; and if I can get outside even better. For me morning is the best time. The sun peeks up over the hills and shines across the mighty Columbia  river and I can smell a hint of wood smoke in the air as someone takes the chill off a morning that dipped below freezing sometime during the night. There is frost on the grass that adds a bluish white to the fall morning’s palate of reds, greens, yellows, oranges and browns. When I look out at such a world I can’t help pause in wonder at the beauty that God has wrought for us, his creation. Over a hot cup of tea or coffee it makes me ponder at just exactly what it means to be beautiful. Is true beauty (as the saying goes) in the eye of the beholder, or is it something greater? Is it merely a physical quality (a synonym for pretty) or does it bear some sort of transcendental quality that invites us to contemplate a higher reality?  If it does invite us to contemplate a higher reality, what does that even mean?  I do not think we can limit beauty to merely a synonym for pretty, for if that were the case it would sound ridiculous to say that listening to a symphony by Beethoven sounded “pretty”, or watching an amazing play in sports was a “pretty” moment?  You really can’t. Yet we can say that both of these, along with the sunrise on a frosty fall morning are beautiful.  True beauty is something that goes beyond merely physical good looks. When I think about the truly beautiful things in my life, the idea of beauty does not match up to words like “pretty.”  Instead the word beauty is, in many ways, more synonymous with words like mystical, magical, and supernatural. When I think of beauty I think of something that goes beyond the average and ordinary. It is something that pushes creation to a new limit and reveals some hidden characteristic of the divine architect. Something is truly beautiful only in as much as it draws us to a higher reality and more perfectly the divine. This is why some paintings, no matter how pretty they may be, cannot be truly beautiful. When an artist paints a picture (for example) that profanes the sacred, no matter how well it is painted it will never be truly beautiful because it is a lie. It takes the sacred, (which is beautiful because it reflects the beauty of the God) and presents it in a way that is intended to degrade it. This is why for hundreds of years the Catholic Church has been on the forefront of promoting art. Artists like Michelangelo had a deep faith, which is what helped them to create beautiful frescos and statues for the Church. So next time you see a beautiful sunrise, or look out over the valley from the top of a mountain and feel like it somehow reflects the majesty, beauty and goodness of God, it does.  More importantly it isn’t an accident.