The rose "Elle" from my garden ©A. Rutherford
The poet John Keats said, "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty—
that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
One of the several "topics" I want to ponder more about this coming year is Beauty. Beauty both in the Aristotelian sense of one of the great moral virtues co-equal with Truth and Goodness, and also in the Scriptural sense of Beauty as an attribute of God. I also want to reflect on the effect it has on individuals and society when people lose their sense of and their appreciation for the Beautiful.
Sounds like a "hairy" topic . . . but it really isn't . . . and I believe it is such an important thing to think about.
Although Beauty is considered by philosophers as one of the "Great Ideas" of Western Civilization, Beauty can happen to us in such simple ways as well.
A while ago my daughter reminded me of a bit of a poem by Yeats, a poet we both enjoy.
from "The Rose upon the Rood of Time"
Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,
I find under the boughs of love and hate,
In all poor foolish things that live a day,
Eternal Beauty wandering on her way.
Come near, come near, come near—Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
I find the thought of rose-breath delightful and beautiful . . . maybe that's why I like to thrust my nose deep into the heart of flowers to inhale their essence. I especially like flowers that have a sweet scent but also a coolness on my cheek.
Ooops! I digress . . . this is supposed to be the beginning of a discussion about the way Beauty connects us with the eternal. But flowers are a God-gift, are they not?
I think that's what I like about this blog format . . . topics can easily be returned to and added to as your thoughts about them develop and grow and even change.
I think it was Southern writer Flannery O'Connor who said (although several others get credit for it too), "How do I know what I think until I write it down and see what I say?"
That's great! I always tell my students that writing is discovery, and you can't say you don't have anything to write about until you have "talked" to yourself on the page. Get it down there in black and white so you can see what you have to say or what you think about the topic. You may even disagree with what you think you thought! ☺ And that's how we grow in our understanding.
But for now, let's reflect more on a special bit of Philippians 4:8:
"Finally, brethren, . . . whatsoever is lovely . . . let your mind dwell on these things."
"In Appreciation"
Accept, Eternal God, my prayer of thanks
For roses blushing in the twilight's haze,
For grasses drenched with diamond drops of dew,
For azure pastures where soft "cloud sheep" graze.
Accept my thanks for these: The robin's song,
The emerald arches of the trees above,
The murmur of the crystal brook nearby,
The plaintive cooing of the turtle dove.
Accept my thanks for winds that moan and sigh
And shake the leafy trees upon the hill,
For crimson berries dripping honeyed juice,
For velvet moss on stones besides the rill.
Accept, Eternal God, my thanks for all
The beauteous things Thy tender love has planned.
With grateful heart I touch each flower, each leaf,
And in so doing, touch Thy blessed hand!!
-by Emma Stewart Jacobson
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5 comments:
Hi,
Your blog is beautiful. Just finished reading Jan Karon's newest book, In the Company of Others. It takes place in Ireland - you'll love it.
Patty
Oh, I'm glad you have that book. It was one of my Epiphany gifts from Summer, which I opened on Jan. 6. Haven't started it yet due to circumstances, but I had been eagerly awaiting its publishing date. I just know it's going to make me "homesick." ☺
Gleaned from a favorite website of mine...
The Swiss Jesuit theologian, Father Hans Urs von Balthasar — whose work has had great impact on Pope Benedict XVI — explored the depths of sacred beauty in his magnum opus, The Glory of God, a seven volume theological exposition that contemplates the inseparable nature of the good, the beautiful, and the true.
“Before the beautiful – no, not really before but within the beautiful – the whole person quivers. He not only ‘finds’ the beautiful moving; rather, he experiences himself as being moved and possessed by it,” he wrote.
According to Balthasar, beauty has the ability not just to dazzle, but to consume! If we understand, as we should, that beauty is inextricably linked with the presence of Almighty God, this shouldn’t surprise us. What is surprising is how often we settle for the “less-than-beautiful” when it comes to the sacred.
Before he died in 1988, Balthasar also said, “Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance.”
What a remarkable quote! Balthasar is telling us that the “bold and the beautiful” really do go together; beauty demands an act of the will on our part and when we are lax with regard to beauty we can kiss truth and goodness goodbye as well.
One more comment on Beauty from an excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI's address, given in the Sistine Chapel, to a group of artists, musicians, actors, and writers...
"This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart, and is that precious fruit which resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands... Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world."
"Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy "shock", it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum – it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it "reawakens" him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft. Dostoevsky’s words that I am about to quote are bold and paradoxical, but they invite reflection. He says this: "Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he could no longer live, because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here." The painter Georges Braque echoes this sentiment: "Art is meant to disturb, science reassures." Beauty pulls us up short, but in so doing it reminds us of our final destiny, it sets us back on our path, fills us with new hope, gives us the courage to live to the full the unique gift of life."
Greg, these are excellent considerations on Beauty, but the second one, from Benedict, especially addresses one of the questions I said that I desired to consider:
"I also want to reflect on the effect it has on individuals and society when people lose their sense of and their appreciation for the Beautiful."
Thanks for posting these!
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