Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment. ~N.T. Wright
I’m a seeker of beauty but I struggle to describe it.
Beauty is a word, like love and peace and freedom, that leaves both a lingering scent of promise and the sour smell of past assumptions piled on top.
Beauty is subjective, and the word is misused, but tenacious nonetheless. However we define or deface it, beauty haunts us.
As an entering college student, I was given a test meant to determine which major and profession would fit my interests. I scored high in two areas: Nature and Beauty. In their characteristic, pragmatic way, the test designers pointed to taxidermy as a perfect job for me.
Taxidermy.
I’ve been struggling off-road ever since, distracted not by beauty but its opposite. There are so many reasons in this world to cry foul. I hack away at ugly, and lament its noxious presence, with its twisted intentions and poisonous attitudes sending runner roots into every human heart. Including mine.
I’m wondering now if it’s time to put the weed spray away and try planting beauty where I can.
In France, I met Ted Nuttall, a water-color portraitist of considerable talent and an easy demeanor. Ted paints ordinary people, caught by his camera in unguarded moments. The people in the portraits are beautiful, because beauty is what the painter sees.
I asked, “Do you grow to love these unsuspecting models as you labor with your paintbrush?”
“Opposite,” he replied. “I love people, so I paint them.”
Beauty As A Sign
In his book, Simply Christian, N. T. Wright describes the biblical message,
“a story of what the one creator God has been doing to rescue his beautiful world and to put it to rights. And the story…indicates that the present world really is a signpost to a larger beauty, a deeper truth…not just the beauty of God himself, but the beauty which, because God is the creator par excellence, he will create when the present world is rescued, healed, restored, and completed.”
I’m a pilgrim, a planter, and a teller of the story, and at every turn I choose the cause of beauty or the thief that would destroy it.
Are you planting beauty, or distracted by the ugly?
Photograph by Melanie Hunt
10 replies on “On The Way To Beauty”
Philosophers have for centuries debated whether or not there could be some objective standard for beauty; what is simply ‘beautiful’ for all persons at all places and times. And yet, what might be considered ‘ugly’ by one is seen as ‘beautiful’ by another. Is this a statement of aesthetics, ethics, morality, virtue, character, deception…? Possibly one of my favorite explorations. Ever. Nice work, as usual, Janet.
Robert, easier to think in the abstract than labor and love, isn’t it?
Janet,
This watered my dry heart this morning. Your words are refreshing, beautiful, and tear-inducing. Thank you for pointing out the beauty in our world. Too often I am distracted by the ugly.
Vicki
Vicki, you deserve a long soak in beauty, my friend!
Loved this post, Janet. And laughed out loud at the thought of you as a taxidermist! I needed the laugh. And the thoughts on beauty… Thank you.
Ginny, I’m delighted to make you laugh! A gentle hug sent your way…
I, too, sit here chuckling at the idea of “Janet, taxidermist”…but the rest of your message is, well, beautiful!
Thanks, Chris. May beauty find you today!
Beauty is always present.
The promise of beauty for ashes is always present.
I am thankful for your being “a teller of the story”.
I am blessed that you fan into flame the truth .. The beautiful truth.
Ginny, your words are beautiful!