Is there a spiritual dimension to beauty?
Commentary by Walter Hesford | FāVS News
As we were deciding what to talk about next during our backyard interfaith discussion group in June, our eyes were drawn to some newly blooming orange-red poppies. “I can see God in such beautiful flowers,” said one of our group. So we decided to focus our next session on beauty.
Later, another member of our group, who said he was not religious at all, confessed that he had shared with us the beauty of the poppy until God called him out, and then he felt isolated, excluded, and excommunicated.
Should we see beauty as something spiritual, or should we celebrate beauty for its own sake?
There is ample evidence that beauty is a spiritual phenomenon. In her 2009 online article, “Beauty and Spirituality,” Christine Walters Peter proposes that “all human beings yearn for beauty. In beauty we find the face of God.” She quotes Gerard Manley Hopkins’s magnificent sonnet, “The Greatness of God.”
“The world is full of God’s greatness,” declares the Bible.
Hopkins continues, “Notwithstanding our trampling upon nature, she is never wasted; in the depths of things dwells a most dear freshness.” Hopkins attributes this freshness, this beauty, to the Holy Spirit.
Feeling the presence of God in beauty
Similar declarations can be found in many Romantic poems and Christian hymns. They all speak to me. I have felt God’s presence in the beauty of the deep woods and my humble backyard.
Of course, Christians are not the only ones who value beauty for religious reasons: otherwise, for example, beautiful mosques inscribed with graceful Arabic and arabesque patterns would not exist. Consider also traditional Chinese painting, which draws on Taoism and Buddhism to depict the beauty of mountain and river landscapes imbued with an enlightened emptiness.
The most powerful religious celebration of beauty I know of is the Navajo Night Song (available online in English), which is sung during a nine-day healing ceremony. The assurance that we are surrounded by beauty is essential to the healing of the sick and the well-being of the entire tribe.
This affirmation appears multiple times during the chant in dynamic and beautiful passages, helping to restore the sick or marginalized person to a state of wholeness. At the end, the person is ready to walk out.
“I walk in beauty.”
I walk with beauty before my eyes.
There are beautiful views above and around and I walk on.
It turned out beautifully.
It’s beautifully done.”
Even to an outsider to the culture like me, this celebration of beauty is a religious experience, a reminder of what is essential in life and makes the immanent transcendental, but I can understand the perspective of those who experience the beauty of the world simply for its own sake, rather than as something religious.
Beauty and truth come together
Henry David Thoreau was an avowed transcendentalist, rooted in the incredible beauty that unfolds every day and night and devoted himself to this rather than any organized religion. For him and others like him, turning to religion as a source of beauty does a disservice to the natural beauty of the world.
There is certainly beauty in the patterns explored by science, and from what I’ve heard, by mathematical formulas. A mathematical friend of mine says that a sign that a formula is true may be that it is elegant and beautiful. Beauty and truth are anciently linked. To call something true is to say that it is balanced, adequate, solid, and reliable. Works of art have these qualities, too, and there is just something about them that we find aesthetically pleasing.
I myself have a tendency to indulge in aesthetic pleasures. I can sit for hours admiring the beauty of a landscape or an abstract painting. Of course, this runs the risk of keeping me from caring about those in my community and the world who deserve my attention. So I need to pop my beautiful bubble every now and then. Thankfully, my wife and church have a way of bringing me back to reality.
The blooming poppies that inspired this column are long gone, and it’s heart-melting to realize that all earthly beauty is fleeting. But I’ll be honest with you, right now I’m entranced by the bright pink hollyhocks by the side of my driveway.
The views expressed in this opinion section are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News, which values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on faith and spirituality.
