The issue of beauty is central to Christian spirituality. To take it one step further, it is central to being alive. What exactly is beauty? It seems easy to recognize what is beautiful, but hard to define it. Sunsets, a Mozart concerto, a beautiful bed of flowers on an open field, and many other things would be seen as beautiful. Some words that can be connected with beauty are awe-filled, fascinating, lovely, thrilling, and wonderful. Ultimately, they are the things that we can see, hear and feel that inspire us and touch our hearts.
Yet, with the rise of sensual over-stimulation through media, entertainment, advertising, and the internet has caused us to become numb to what is truly beautiful. Thus we have become apathetic and unmoved by the beauty that surrounds us. Thomas Dubay in his groundbreaking book on the theology of beauty writes, “To respond to reality and to appreciate it are normal; not to respond is abnormal. It seems fair to say that a person blind and deaf to beauty, uninterested in anything noble in literature, science, philosophy, religion, and the arts, focused on sense pleasures alone (licit or illicit), is not only unattractive to others, but most likely incapable of genuine love and delight” (Evidential power of beauty, pg. 73).
If lifelessness and boredom characterizes our lives, what are we to do to begin to feel again? How are we to truly appreciate beauty and thus be alive? There are two specific ways that can help develop our sensitivity to beauty again.
1. Minimize sense pleasures in our lives – The constant noise and stimulus that fills our lives through the dramatic rise of technology has inculcated us to experiencing the beauty that surrounds us on a daily basis. Thus, to begin to appreciate beauty we have to minimize the exposure to the sense pleasures around us. This will help us to slow down long enough to be able to hear the whispers of beauty that are in our daily lives.
2. Be a learner – If you are one who is not immediately drawn to classical music, art, or literature and classify them as boring, before you throw this piece of advice out the window stop yourself and contemplate whether you are the one who is actually boring. Be willing to take the posture of being a learner and actually sit under some of these works of art or nature and allow yourself to hear and see what they are saying. Do not be so quick to pride and aloofness that you miss out on the opportunity to experience beauty, which ultimately comes from God.
The Evidential Power of Beauty - Where Science and Theology Meet
These are just two small ways to cultivate the journey of being truly alive in appreciation for beauty. As Dubay says, “God made us for , “a joy so glorious that it cannot be described” (1 Pet. 1:8)”" (Evidential, pg. 18). Therefore, let us all decrease sense pleasures and increase humility to sit before the beauty that surrounds us. For just as God was able to appreciate his creation and call it “good” (Gen. 1), let us also, who are created in his image, deem what is beautiful around us, “good.”
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