Beauty must be an expression of God's grace. It has to be... where else can something so good and pure come from. In the bible we are told to "think about whatever is beautiful," but what does that mean when people use beauty to sell products, manipulate people, or set social caste? Maybe these would all be abuses of beauty. Maybe we live in a society that has abused beauty to the point that it is nearly lost to us. We have "created" so much "beauty" that we can no longer recognize what is truly beautiful. A new ipod is "beautiful"... but my wife Emily, the most loving and compassionate person I know, is beautiful too... how can the same world really retain any meaning when applied to both? My sisters are so beautiful... and so are the models in magazines... yet, how can the sexy airbrushed "beauty" of Elle or Teen also describe Johanna's unwavering modesty and sacrifice for her friends or Bethany's quiet passion for her family & friends and her innocent purity? The range of meaning is so great that all meaning is lost. There seems to be great beauty confusion today... people look at porn to find beauty... yet its very nature abuses beauty in so many ways... Children are beautiful, any yet confused people who can no longer differentiate between "beauty" and true beauty hurt children in a tragic attempt to possess the child's beauty and innocence. Maybe we need a new word or category to describe what we are talking about as people who see the Image of God hidden and apparent in all of creation.
Beauty must be an expression of God's grace. It has to be... where else can something so good and pure come from. In the bible we are told to "think about whatever is beautiful," but what does that mean when people use beauty to sell products, manipulate people, or set social caste? Maybe these would all be abuses of beauty. Maybe we live in a society that has abused beauty to the point that it is nearly lost to us. We have "created" so much "beauty" that we can no longer recognize what is truly beautiful. A new ipod is "beautiful"... but my wife Emily, the most loving and compassionate person I know, is beautiful too... how can the same world really retain any meaning when applied to both? My sisters are so beautiful... and so are the models in magazines... yet, how can the sexy airbrushed "beauty" of Elle or Teen also describe Johanna's unwavering modesty and sacrifice for her friends or Bethany's quiet passion for her family & friends and her innocent purity? The range of meaning is so great that all meaning is lost. There seems to be great beauty confusion today... people look at porn to find beauty... yet its very nature abuses beauty in so many ways... Children are beautiful, any yet confused people who can no longer differentiate between "beauty" and true beauty hurt children in a tragic attempt to possess the child's beauty and innocence. Maybe we need a new word or category to describe what we are talking about as people who see the Image of God hidden and apparent in all of creation.
