abc's of a momentary monk: B is for Beauty

My middle daughter Kate asked me, "Hey Dad, what is beauty?" In the next moment my wife asked me, rather she told me, "Take out the garbage!"  I was thrown for a loop regarding the juxtaposition and the irony in those two moments, tethered together like the seams of a baseball moving at 90 mph.   

However, it got me thinking about beauty and garbage.  Garbage is what we make, it is a symbol of our effieiency. The ability to manufacture, produce, consume, reduce, in order to go and buy again, to re-consume. It is what makes us modern-- and insane!

Beauty is what we want. It is the most provocative promise that one has of the BEAUTIFUL ONE. As I thought about my daughters question. I thought for anything to be beautiful it must capture, even if just a shadow, something of what is ultimate Beauty, or God. The variety of colors, leaves changing hue in the fall, good music, fine tastes, silence, a walk in the woods, snow capped mountains all are penultimate and point to the ultimate. Those beautiful things are beautiful because they point to the One who is beautiful. They capture something of what it means to be creative, intelligent, expansive, humorous, and to participate in the very life of the divine. Beauty feeds this type of contemplation. This contemplation leads us to the greatest end-- to the presence of God. Beauty calls us beyond the present and the banal to an everlasting NOW where Beauty dwells in fluid perpetuity. Beauty removes the mediocre and lifts us to the height of consciousness. It is why when I experience something truly beautiful I am energized, awakened, stimulated, and breathed afresh with new life.

The poet and artist create beautiful prose that pushes us in the direction of the ONE. They must awaken our imaginations to the greater possibilities. Emily Dickinson writes that there is more to existence than what we experience. She writes, "The World is not Conclusion. A Species stands beyond--Invisible, as Music--But positive, as Sound--It beckons, and it baffles--Philosophy--don't know- And through a Riddle, at the last-Sagacity, must go...Strong Hallelujahs roll-Narcotics cannot still the Tooth, That nibbles at the soul--"

Garbage is interesting because it is what we prefer. The ordinary, the consumption, the effecient, that which is functional. As a people we create garbage and trash. Hence, the need for me to take out the trash. But that is exactly what must be done to experience something, or more appropriately Someone, beautiful. Take it out; the trash, the garbage, the clutter, the plastic flowers, the remains, in order to see what is meant to be seen, the Beautiful One. When the garbage is gone there is room for beauty and when there is room for beauty, there is room for God. So take out the garbage!