why beauty matters.

Beauty is powerful. It may be the most powerful thing on earth. It is dangerous. Because it matters. 


First, beauty speaks. Oxford bishop Richard Harries wrote, "It is the beauty of the created order which gives an answer to our questionings about God." And we do have questions, don't we? Questions born out of our disappointments, our sufferings, our fears. Augustine said he found answers to his questions in the beauty of the world.


I said to all these things, "Tell me of my God who you are not, tell me something about him." And with a great voice they cried out: "He made us" (Psalm 99:3). My question was the attention I gave to them, and their response was their beauty.


And what does beauty say to us? Think of what it is like to be caught in traffic for more than an hour. Horns blaring, people shouting obscenities. Exhaust pouring in your windows, suffocating you. Then remember what it's like to come into a beautiful place, a garden or a meadow or a quiet beach. There is room for your soul. It expands. You can breath again. You can rest. It is good. All is well. I sit outside on a summer evening and just listen and behold and drink it all in, and my heart begins to quiet and peace begins to come into my soul. My heart tells me, All will be well, as Julian of Norwhich concluded. "And all manner of things will be well."
That is what beauty says, All shall be well.
And this is what it's like to be with a woman at rest, a woman comfortable in her feminine beauty. She is enjoyable to be with. She is lovely. In her presence your heart stops holding its breath. You relax and believe once again that all will be well. And this is also why a woman who is striving is so disturbing, for a woman who is not at rest in her heart says to the world, All is not well. Things are not going to turn out all right. "Like a fountain troubled," as Shakespeare said, "muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty." We need what Beauty speaks. What it says is hard to put into words. But part of its message is that all is well. All will be well.


Beauty also invites. Recall what it is like to hear a truly beautiful piece of music. It captures you; you want to sit down and just drink it in. We buy the CD and play it many times over. (This is not visual, showing us that beauty is deeper than looks.) Music like this commands your attention, invites you to come more deeply into it. The same is true of a beautiful garden, or a scene in nature. You want to enter in, explore, partake of it, feast upon it. We describe a great book as "captivating." It draws you in, holds your attention. You can't wait to get back to it, spend time with it. All of the responses that God wants of us. All the responses a woman wants too. Beauty invites.


Beauty nourishes. It is a kind of food our souls crave. A woman's breast is among the loveliest of all God's works, and it is what her breast that she nourishes a baby -- a stunning picture of the way in which Beauty itself nourishes us. In fact, a woman's body is one of the most beautiful of all God's creations. "Too much of eternity," as William Blake said, "for the eye of man." It nourishes, offers life. That is such a profound metaphor for Beauty itself. As C.S. Lewis said,


We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves. (The Weight of Glory)


Beauty comforts. There is something profoundly healing about it. Have you ever wondered why we send flowers to the bereaved? In the midst of their suffering and loss, only a gift of beauty says enough or says it right. There's a touching story told from the hospitals of WWII, where a young and badly wounded soldier was brought in from a hellish week of fighting. After doing what she could for him, the nurse asked if there was anything else she could do. "Yes," he said. "Could you just put on some lipstick while I watch?" Beauty comforts. It soothes the soul.


Beauty inspires. After beholding all the marvelous wonders of the creation of Narnia (as told in The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis), the cabbie says, "Glory be! I'd have been a better man all my life if I'd known there were things like this!" Think of what it might have been like to have been in the presence of a woman like Mother Teresa. Her life was so beautiful, and it called us to something higher. A teacher in the inner city explained why he insisted on putting a fountain and flowers in the courtyard of the building. "Because these children need to be inspired. They need to know that life can be better." Beauty inspires. 


Beauty is transcendent. It is our most immediate experience of the eternal. Think of what it's like to behold a gorgeous sunset or the ocean at dawn. Remember the ending of a great story. We yearn to linger, to experience it all our days. Sometimes the beauty is so deep it pieces us with longing. For what? For life as it was meant to be. Beauty reminds us of an Eden we have never known, but somehow know our hearts were created for. Beauty speaks of heaven to come, when all shall be beautiful. It haunts us with eternity. Beauty says, There is a glory calling to you. And if there is a glory, there is a source of glory. What great goodness could have possibly created this? What generosity gave this to behold? Beauty draws us to God. 


All these things are true for any experience of Beauty. But they are especially true when we experience the beauty of a woman--her eyes, her form, her voice, her heart, her spirit, her life. She speaks all of this far more profoundly than anything else in all creation, because she is incarnate; she is personal. It flows to us from an immortal being. Sh is beauty through and through "For where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?" (Shakespeare). 


Beauty is, without question, the most essential and the most misunderstood of all of God's qualities--of all feminine qualities too. We know it has caused untold pain in the lives of women. But even there something is speaking. When so much heartache over beauty? We don't ache over being geniuses or fabulous hockey players. Women ache over the issue of beauty--they ache to be beautiful, to believe they are beautiful, and they worry over keeping it if ever they can find it. 


A woman knows, down in her soul, that she longs to bring beauty to the world. She might be mistaken on how (something every woman struggles with), but she longs for a beauty to unveil. This is not just culture, or the need to "get a man." This is in her heart, part of her design. 


Excerpt from Captivating (John & Stasi Eldredge)