Beauty Is Holy

SAT., JAN. 25, 1992, 6:23 AM
FARM, STUDY

There is an obvious truth in this title, but you don’t know how it will develop as a Teaching. You hear the wind blowing with some strength, and you see the bare trees moving against the pre-dawn sky. Yes, o son, this is a small example of beauty in the earth… a “moving” beauty that can be experienced as it occurs, but cannot be “held.” Strange, isn’t it, that this time before the earth turns so that the sun appears is a time of colorful beauty, a beauty that fades and disappears when the sun “rises.”

The beauty of the winter season is mostly a beauty of starkness. The great trees outside that you see in each direction are barren… beauty of barren branches and trunks. In the lushness of summer you could not see the sky, and the beauty would be in the green of uncountable leaves.

Wisely you tend to see the beauty of this place rather than the drabness and ugliness. You and your son removed the broken branches from this north side so that ugliness is gone, but you now must overlook the scattered fallen branches… or else see them as part of the beauty of nature recycling. Those branches eventually help sustain the soil, you know, but they harm the beauty of a clean forest floor.

Take some time today and walk around this Farm. See and appreciate the beauty that just is, but also (both/and) envision greater beauty that would be achieved with some “clean-up.” One trip to the dump improved that back area, so keep it up. No big project… just an eye for beauty.

For beauty is a part of holiness, and it works both ways. A thing of beauty has a holiness to it and that which is holy is beautiful. The part of the earth into which I came, as Jesus, and in which the whole Bible story takes place is not one of much beauty, to you. What differences would the story have had if I had come to people in the Rocky mountains or to some on a lush, tropical island? It would have been a somewhat different story, but not better or worse.

As you read Scripture (as I continue to encourage you to do) be a bit more aware of the beauty of the scenes, described or imagined. Discern whether the beauty is “natural” or whether it emanates from the holiness of a place or event.

I have spoken thus far about the beauty of the earth, in its natural and created “forms.” Another form of beauty is in humans, in human actions, and in human relationships. Some people have inherent physical beauty. In others their beauty shines forth from their actions and their very being. For groups of people it is comparable. The class you met on Wednesday was, originally, just a group of young people crowded into a room. When you knew names of all of them, and had watched them talk about and then write about a life and death story the group became one of more beauty. This is one of your challenges in teaching: make each class group more beautiful as they leave than when they entered by what happens in the class session.

Now you see the beauty of the sun, low in the morning sky. As it “rises” you will no longer be able to look at it, for its beauty is lost in its brilliance and power. Yet you know that as you see it “going down” in the west this evening it will regain its beauty. This suggests that there can be more beauty in the less functional scene. Picture a park with people in quiet leisure, and compare this with pictures of the stock exchange or the grain market in full competitive swing. It is easier to see the beauty in that which is not in full, frantic functioning.