“Where beauty is — beauty isn’t all about just niceness, loveliness. Beauty is about more rounded substantial becoming. And when we cross a new threshold worthily, what we do is we heal the patterns of repetition that were in us that had us caught somewhere. So I think beauty in that sense is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.” (John O’Donohue, Irish poet, author, and priest)
I was honoured to be invited to speak at the spring worship service for our county’s branch of the Royal Canadian College of Organists. This was also a challenge! What to say to group of church musicians, who have collectively sat through thousands of worship services, and heard preachers of all varieties, and all levels of ability.
I chose as one of my texts the above quote from an interview John O’Donohue did on the NPR program “On Being” with Krista Tippet.
I also chose a selection from Psalm 88, in the modern paraphrase The Message:
“I’ve had my fill of trouble; I’m camped on the edge of hell. I’m written off as a lost cause, one more statistic, a hopeless case. Abandoned as already dead, one more body in a stack of corpses, And not so much as a gravestone— I’m a black hole in oblivion.”
Those words are stark and unrelenting, and conjure up uncomfortable images.
They may also speak to and maybe, from the hearts and souls of people we know. There are many who feel sad, abandoned, without hope. There are many in our world whose daily existence is marred by war, famine, disastrous weather events, and the effects of long-term mistreatment of the land, the air, the water, and all living creatures. There are many who suffer at the hands of others.
There are powerful forces at work in the world that can leave a person feeling like one more body in a stack of corpses, or that, even though they are alive, their only friend is the darkness.
What can we do, what can we create that offers, if not actual hope, but the hope of hope?
We can donate our money, and other material gifts, our time, our hard labour to make tangible differences for people who are in need, who are suffering. I am sure many of us have channels through which we help others, and also make gifts and donations. That’s good.
The meeting of basic physical needs is vitally important, but also insufficient.
The Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament remind us we are meant to love God with our whole selves, heart, soul and mind. There is so much more to us than our physical bodies.
Each of us are marvelously and wondrously made, created and gifted by God, and part of what it means to love God is to apply our whole selves in service to others, to the world.
It is more difficult to engage with the world, to be in relationship with others, to help others, when our basic physical requirements are not met. We need adequate food, water, sleep, security, shelter and exercise.
Our inner selves, heart, mind and spirit also crave, and require feeding and nurture. We need regular reminders that life has meaning, value, and is worth pursuing. We need glimpses of the transcendent.
John O’Donohue, quoted earlier, said it well in Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace:
“The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere – in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion and in ourselves. No-one would desire not to be beautiful. When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming. Some of our most wonderful memories are of beautiful places where we felt immediately at home. We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul.”
It’s easy, I admit, for a middle class white guy with education, professional status and a pension to say what the world needs is more beauty.
The world needs a lot of things, many of which can’t be realized, unless people are energized, inspired, enthused, encouraged to be good, to do good, to create good.
The beauty about which O’Donohue spoke so eloquently, so beautifully, invites all of us to be our best selves. People who are being their best selves, act in the best interests, not just of themselves, but of others.
This suggests to me that the world needs those who have the means and capacity to create beauty to keep at it.
reluctant sleuth is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
That could very well be.
Beautifully said. Thank you for sharing.