“Art” said Dante, “is the grandchild of God.”
For the Ancients, Art and Beauty were often synonyms for the creative symmetry, aesthetic nuance and the mysterious attractive essence of a thing. I want to share a conglomeration of 5 short thoughts gleaned from Chapter 7 of Ian Cron’s amazing book “Chasing Francis”, which I have commandeered and heavily abridged for this blog.
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1. Beauty makes us nostalgic for God. It arouses in us what the Pope calls a “universal desire for redemption.” Our Culture’s collective neglect of the power of Beauty and Art may at least help to explain why so many have lost interest in their own souls. Beauty makes us nostalgic for God.
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2. We humans are meaning-seekers. We approach every painting, novel, film, symphony, or I might add – tragedy, unconsciously hoping it will at least move us one step further on the journey toward answering the question ‘Why am I here?’ Humans are meaning-seekers.
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3. Beauty is not the destination. Lewis said that Beauty was not “in the books or the music in which we experienced it; it only came through them, and what came through them was longing … Books or Music are not the thing itself, but only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not yet visited.” Beauty is not the destination.
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4. Beauty can awaken a thirst for God. People living in our postmodern world, i.e. many of my students, are faced with an excruciating dilemma. Their hearts long to find ultimate meaning, while at the same time their critical minds do not believe it exists. They are homesick, but have no home. They don’t believe in God, but they miss Him, and I believe that Beauty is one thing that can awaken their thirst for the Numinous; for the Absolute. Beauty can awaken a thirst for God.
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5. Beauty is subversive; it flies under the radar of people’s critical filters and points them to God. When the front door of the intellect is closed to God, the back door of the imagination is often open to Him. I believe this gives Beauty an important role in a church or school’s corporate invitation to the good life. When the intellect is hardened to God, the soul can still be receptive to Him, because Beauty is subversive.