Yesterday I
wrote about the beautiful day. Obviously
that day is gone. I have memories of the
day, its beauty, and how much I enjoyed it.
But it exists only in memory.
That does not make it any less real.
But it is not present. Today is a
new and different day. And it, too, will
disappear with the night and give way to tomorrow. Such is the running of chronos---Greek word for chronology or time.
However, I
cannot get my mind off beauty. That’s
ok. I don’t know as much about beauty as
I do about other things. I have much to
learn about beauty. I want to learn how
to sense it more deeply. I want to learn
how to appreciate it more profoundly. I want to be moved by it. I am sure there is something significantly
spiritual about beauty that I don’t yet grasp.
In my attempt
to grasp more significantly that spiritual aspect of beauty, I was reminded of
some writing that appeared years ago.
Rollo May was one of my favorite writers back in my younger, formative
days. So I turned again to something he
wrote called My Quest for Beauty.
May writes,
“Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace
simultaneously.” Already I am engaged
with these words. I am struck by his
statement, beauty is an experience. I am
not sure what I would have said, but it probably would not suggest that it was
an experience. Of course in saying that,
I am not sure what I thought it was.
Perhaps my idea of beauty is too abstract, too heady. Surely beauty is an experience. That is exactly what the case was when I
wrote about the beautiful day. It was an
experience of the day---the beautiful day.
The second
thing that strikes me in the words of Rollo May is the fact that the experience
of beauty brings a sense of joy and peace.
Who can be against these? I would
love to have that sense of joy and peace every day. However, joy and peace are not commodities like
corn or gas. There is no filling station
where you pull up and load up. “Fill ‘er
up with joy and peace,” I want to ask!
Beauty is an experience, not a commodity.
May continues
his helpful explication of beauty. He
tells us that “Beauty is serene and at the same time exhilarating; it increases
one’s sense of being alive.” That is
quite a contrast. Beauty is serene. I appreciate serenity. It is an antidote to the craziness and
stupidity of our world. All too often, I
am amazed at my own craziness and stupidity!
Some days it feels like I am careening through time. I bounce from event to event, from class to class. I make it through, but what did I
experience? Was there any beauty? Probably not if I did not also experience
some serenity.
But May also
tells me there might be some exhilaration.
I wonder how many of us ever experience exhilaration? Doubtlessly, that is why many of us turn to
sports or some venue like that. We will
experience exhilaration when our home team scores a run or a touchdown. When our team wins, we feel like we win,
too. But it is vicarious. We have not played the game; it was not
really “our” win.
Apparently,
beauty can do it. I am going to continue
being open to this experience of beauty.
I want its sense of serenity and exhilaration. I want that sense of peace and joy it
delivers into our lives. When I become
more disciplined in my approach, I can experience it not only with sunny,
beautiful days; it can come with any day.
Finally,
Rollo May tells us that “Beauty gives us not only a feeling of wonder; it
imparts to us at the same moment a timelessness, a repose---which is why we
speak of beauty as being eternal.” These
words hit home. A couple days ago when I
wrote about the beauty of the day, I am confident I was experiencing the wonder
that beauty elicits.
Now that I
think about it, we cannot talk about something being “wonderful” if there is
not some precipitating wonder behind it.
So what really was happening was this sense of wonder, which I
experienced and called “wonderful.” And
behind that was the real source, namely, beauty. In that brief moment all three were connected
for me.
Somehow in
the beauty of that day, I experienced the beauty and the wonder that proceeds
from beauty. And I called it
“wonderful.” Of course, at one level, it
is fleeting. That day is gone. A new day keeps coming. But on the other hand, beauty is
timeless. It is a repose, as May calls
it. In this sense it is eternal.
Funny to
think about: recently I experienced eternity---fleeting eternity. And it was wonderful!
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