Being Grasped by Beauty, a Critical Means to Faith

In today’s world there are several kinds of hermits. Most live in wilderness areas of great beauty --- deserts, mountains, redwood forests, and so forth. They choose these areas because they are isolated from people, relatively silent except for natural sounds, and of course, beautiful and awe-inspiring. Then there are hermits like myself. We are called urban hermits not only because of where we live but because we are concerned with witnessing to the redemption of what Thomas Merton once called the “unnatural solitudes" of cities. Even so, as persons of faith, and therefore of prayer, we are necessarily concerned with the ways beauty works in every person’s spiritual life.

You see, the truth is that Hermits living in natural wildernesses tell us something profound about ourselves, and about natural beauty and its relation to faith. It is a piece of what the author of the book of Wisdom is concerned with today (Friday, 15 November), namely, that before faith is our own act of knowing, or trusting, or professing our belief --- and certainly before it is an act of ministering to others, it is about being grasped or taken hold of by something larger than we are. Paul Tillich, a 20C. theologian called faith the state of being grasped by an ultimate (as opposed to a less than ultimate) concern --- where God is identified with such ultimacy and concern is a form of existential seriousness related to the promise and demand of that reality which has taken hold of us. Similarly Saint Paul tells us that in faith and prayer it is not so much that we know God but rather that we are known or comprehended by God.

We have all had this experience ourselves. Though it occurs for many most fully and explicitly in quiet prayer or in hearing a bit of Scripture that truly speaks to us, most often it occurs whenever we encounter beauty. It might be the beauty of nature or of a great symphony or other piece of music. It can be a great work of art or a piece of pottery or sculpture. It might be a work of literature which captures our imagination and inspires us to greater humanity --- but when it happens there is just no doubt that it comes from beyond us and is larger than the single instance of beauty we have just encountered. Something transcendent has taken hold of us. We even say about a piece of art, or whatever the source of beauty is: “It really grabbed me!” When this happens we will also find that it may have shaken or troubled us, surprised or shocked us, delighted or otherwise consoled us --- but always that it has inspired and inevitably enlarged us.

We need these experiences of beauty because they prepare us for true faith in the God Jesus reveals fully to us. Though these experiences, these mediators of beauty are not transparent to God in the way Jesus is, they prepare us to be known by God, to be grasped and loved by him -- even as they signal how immense he is and what a dignity we ourselves share. In other words they open us to a Divinity we cannot control and certainly cannot comprehend. Such experiences ask and assist us to be open at all times to the ultimate beauty and source of all lesser beauties which we call God. We need these experiences because they prepare us for true faith in the God Jesus reveals fully to us. Though these experiences, these mediators of beauty, are not transparent to God in the way Jesus is, they prepare us to be known by God, to be grasped and loved by him -- even as they signal how immense he is and what a profound dignity we ourselves share. In other words they open us to a Divinity we cannot control and certainly cannot comprehend. Such experiences ask and assist us to be open at all times to Ultimate Beauty --- the source and ground of all lesser experiences of beauty which we call God.

The author of Wisdom also asks that we do this. Implicitly he knows that faith is about being grasped whether by depth, or meaning, or beauty. And like St Paul and Tillich he knows that this experience raises questions of life and death, meaning and meaninglessness which invite us to live life seriously. He also has a warning: don’t mistake the beautiful tree or the lightening, or the fire for gods. We call that religious mistake pantheism. God transcends these things because he is their source and ground. Today the author of Wisdom’s warning would more likely take a different form for us: don’t mistake beauty, especially that of nature, for “all there is”. This mistake (the religion --- for it IS a belief system --- known today as “the new” atheism!) also diminishes nature and its wonder precisely in denying its source and ground. The form of atheism today known as “naturalism” or “scientific naturalism” is actually a refusal to allow the transcendent beauty of nature to take hold of us with the power to awe, shake, and transform which is so truly characteristic of it. This form of  less-than-truly-scientific endeavor generally seeks only to grasp, and comprehend, while in its arrogance it refuses to be taken hold of by something infinitely larger than it is.

The pres-
ence of beauty in our lives, our regular seeking it out and celebrating it and the One who is its source and ground, is imperative for our spirituality. Hermits know that unless one does this regularly in some significant way our capacity for faith can be stunted. Today’s reading for us is therefore a challenge to make sure we submit ourselves to the power of beauty --- that we allow ourselves to be grasped and illumined by it in whatever ways we choose --- music, literature, the arts, nature, etc. Our ability to be taken hold of and awed by beauty is, before anything else, a critical way to and preparation for genuine faith.