Beauty as the Antidote
Beauty as the Antidote
According to poet John Keats: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever….” Our ancestors certainly embraced this truth. Witness the Sistine Chapel, Versailles, majestic cathedrals with soaring stained glass windows.
Yet in today’s society of extreme political correctness, to acknowledge beauty --- much less to seek it --- is seen as frivolous, vain, and to be condemned as evidence of self-absorption, shallowness, or lust/greed. We are peer- pressured that there are More Important Things we should be concerned with: global warming, racism, world hunger. Oh, and now a Pandemic. And yes, these are all topics worthy of our attention. But I submit to you, however, that in the midst of our pursuit of remedies for these problems there is still time for --- and a need for beauty in our lives. And in a time of social-distancing and home quarantine, I believe that even more.
God made us unique souls. Each person finds certain things beautiful and this perception of beauty evokes warm and fuzzy feelings of joy. Joy that can assuage the troubles we encounter each day. What appears beautiful to YOU? A few of my co-workers are enamored with fast, expensive foreign sports cars. They flush with excitement and gush with enthusiasm when they find a fellow devotee with whom they can discuss the impressive innards of those engines. Me? I might think the car is very, very pretty … but it does not evoke any particular feeling of joy in me. Contrast that with the glee that occurs when I spy a beautiful table setting such as you would construct for a celebratory meal or see in a magazine. When I prepare my dining table with placemats, china and crystal, linen napkins cinched into decorative napkin rings, a candelabra with scented candles, a floral arrangement, knife rests, and place cards, I feel joy in the beauty of making the meal a Special Event for myself, my family, and my guests. It is a gift of beauty.
Years ago, during a tough time in my life when I was feeling very low, I visited some relatives in a different state. I was invited to lunch at the home of my cousin and his new wife, a woman I had never met. I expected a sandwich. What I encountered was an artistic brunch tableau: lace tablecloths, multi-level displays of little savories and little sweets, crystal goblets, flowers, etc. Something like you’d experience at an expensive bed –and- breakfast inn. And it was done just for me. A woman I had never met had spent hours creating beauty as a gift in honor my presence. I cried. (Quietly and unobtrusively, I hope.) The realization that someone would be so kind as to create beauty for me brought joy to my soul in a time when I needed an antidote to the unpleasantness of my life.
Beauty as an antidote to unpleasantness does not have to be expensive. You need not purchase museum-quality art or fine jewels. Small things will do. I nurture a Chinese cloisonné bowl of English ivy that I’m quite fond of, and can sometimes persuade my amaryllis and my orchid to bloom. I bought ($2.99 each) some large, square plates adorned with bright red flowers. I use them at breakfast so that the halves of my morning bagel can be positioned without the artistry of my cream cheese application being disturbed by the halves touching and overlapping as had happened with my regular dishes. And who doesn’t love bright red flowers in the morning? For years I used a particularly silly coffee mug at work simply because its whimsical beauty made me laugh every day and it was a great conversation starter with my clients. (People are still asking about it almost 30 years later.) At my desk I sipped my H2O from a crystal wine goblet. I still sometimes buy a single fresh flower from the florist for the bud vase on my desk.
I do not feel guilty for purchasing and using items that are, in the strictest sense, completely unnecessary. We all could eschew china and crystal, fresh flowers, handmade scented soaps, fancy chocolates and macarons. But I think God loves beauty and wants us to have it in our lives. I mean, hey, He is the one who invented dark chocolate, right? Just read the portions of the Bible where God gave instructions on how to build His temple and how it should be decorated. People, there was real gold --- and lots of it --- involved. There were also precise instructions on the materials and decorations to be used for priests’ robes. And very impressive garments they were. Such beauty honors God as Creator of the Universe. It is also a gift to us. Let’s face it, we could have been created to live in mud huts and have our nutrients provided to us by a boring diet of bok choy. But God designed us differently, and designed a gorgeous world for us to enjoy. Imagine: there are acres of glorious flowers that bloom on remote mountainsides where only God can see them. Why would He do that? Because God is a God of beauty and joy.
In a Daily Guideposts devotion book from 2003, Pam Kidd wrote about a family friend who encouraged beauty. “The truth is, a cherry makes a grapefruit sweeter, china and crystal are made to be used, presents don’t need to be practical, and you and I are either making life nicer or we’re not. The choice is ours.”
Practicing a life of beauty can be an honor to God who created all things, a balm to our souls, and a gift to someone whose own life may be bereft of beauty and joy.
We can either be making life nice or not. I choose to make life nicer.
Can you think of ways to include beauty in your own life? Ways to make life nicer for someone else? If we must be confined to our homes, can we use a little beauty to make our captivity nicer?