Beauty
Last week at the Q Gathering in New York City, artist Makoto Fujimura spoke to us on the topic “Beauty in Culture.” Fujimura’s words were formed and shaped as gently and organically as his visual art, and I found myself sort of lingering on certain phrases and sentences, trying to capture everything within them. I got lost in some parts of his talk, and it’s taken nearly a week for their meaning to bleed together into some better understanding of beauty.
Here’s the thought-image that has slowly appeared today as I’ve thought about beauty. Some of this is Fujimura’s work, some of it has just come alive with the Spirit’s help:
Beauty always points out our own flaws. When we experience true beauty it speaks to us about the places that we are ugly. We compare ourselves, our lives, our world to the beauty we see and it falls short. We long for beauty and shy away from it at the same time because our hearts were made for more beautiful life and the life we have reminds us of its absence.
Jesus, the creator and very definition of beauty, took beauty and ugliness and allowed them to trade places for a time. He became ugly with our sin. The gruesome cross became beautiful as it took part in a life giving process that took away our short-comings and flaws in the eyes of our Artist. In Jesus’ resurrection he reclaimed beauty for His own while allowing the lowest form of ugliness, the cross, to remain beautiful in its gesture.
It occurs to me that our hearts only have the capacity to know and embrace and love beauty to the fullest if the beauty of the cross allows our ugliness to be eased away, to be put to death by the overcoming beauty of Jesus. Until that moment when we are aware of the beauty God sees in us and we allow ourselves to know only that beauty, we will not be able to appreciate beauty. Until we allow Jesus to trade ugliness for beauty in us, everything beautiful will continue point out that our hearts were made for more and that we need to find it.
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These are thought provoking thoughts regarding beauty. Thanks for sharing them. Beauty draws us and also purifies us. The verse “worship the Lord in the beauty of his holiness” came to mind. Holiness beautiful? Sometimes it’s terrifying to me. Because holiness vividly contrasts with our ugliness, perhaps we are hesitant to draw near. But we can also pray the prayer that’s been put to to simple little chorus, “Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me; All His wondrous compassion and purity. Oh Thou Spirit Divine, all my nature refine ‘Til the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.” That’s real transformation and it’s an onging process. Thank you Lord, for your beauty and for your patience! Help me to draw near to your beauty.