The Necessity of Beauty to Defy Pain and Disorder

As we leave October and all of the unrest in the world bleeds into the merriment of the holidays, how do we hold both beauty and the destruction that is playing out in front of
us on the world’s stage?

I was blessed by Sarah Clarkson’s words on beauty.  She has written on the subject in her book: This Beautiful Truth: How God's Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness.  She encourages us with the healing, transformational function of beauty.  Maybe it’s partly why our Christmas trees do our hearts so much good, the twinkling lights shining in a darkened living room penetrate not just the dark of the room but the residue of the day that may have been filled with too many pastries or parties or purchases.  

She has a quote from a podcast I heard her on that I love several quotes from :  Well, [it is only for the affluent] if beauty is about having a perfect house. But beauty is healing those who have been hurt in a war zone. It's creating shelters where children can have refuge. It's rebuilding what has been destroyed… Beauty is a defiance of the forces of evil and disorder and destruction because it is [their] opposite: where evil tears down, beauty creates; where there is absence, beauty fills.”

Where there is disorder, beauty brings order.  

Whether it is a warzone across the ocean, in Washington DC, or playing out on the landscape of your personal holiday calendar…beauty heals.  

Taking a walk in the fall leaves, or just sitting for a while in front of the lit tree, the gentle smile on the old cashier’s worn face, or appreciating a moment at the window with your coffee may feel frivolous in the context of any of the aforementioned warzones.

But it is a participation in the “defiance of the forces of evil and disorder and destruction because it is their opposite” Because, as Sarah explains, authentic beauty is by definition an encounter with God’s goodness.  

And if you can’t put your finger on what you need to be a little more well, what the world needs, it is an encounter with God’s goodness…every time.  So give yourself permission to attune to God’s goodness through moments of beauty that may have felt too frivolous or gone unnoticed.  And let that be the thread that holds together the order and the disorder, the hard and the glorious, the grief and the gratitude.