This article by Ray Spitzenberger first appeared in Images for East Bernard Tribune August 11, 2022.
The daily news shows us a stark, desolate, hurting world. Cities in ruins, grain fields shriveled up, crime scenes, aftermaths of mass shootings, etc. Yet this is not the world God created, and it does not include the beauty that still remains in our world and is here, though we don’t often see it.
To avoid our going off on rabbit trails, I want to clarify this elusive word “beauty.”
The study of “beauty” is known as “aesthetics.” While “aesthetics” is not the study of art (though the study of art involves aesthetics), it is the study of beauty and “artistic” taste.
The study of “human beauty” is called katology, and is only a minor aspect of “beauty.”
The earliest question ever raised about beauty is the one we’ve heard all our lives, “Is beauty in the eyes of the beholder”? The answer is “yes,” if you’re talking about human beauty, but if you’re not talking about human beauty, then I think there is intrinsic beauty beyond the beholder.
Although William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 54 speaks specifically of human beauty, John Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn” does not. Keats concludes his Ode, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” Wow! That’s going a bit too far, isn’t it?
As a Christian, I understand true beauty, as it is described in the following passage by St. Paul in Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Often we miss beauty in our world, — people-beauty, thing-beauty, word-beauty, action-beauty, etc., — because we ignore daily examples. Not that we ignore beauty intentionally, but we have no “prompt” to help us look.
The Japanese, on the other hand, have had a “prompt” to “see” beauty by means of the centuries-old philosophies they live by, — especially Sabi, Wabi, Shibui, and Yugen. These concepts are imbedded in the back of their minds without a lot of conscious awareness.
For example, a Japanese interior decorator or floral designer would approach his or her designing attempts through the concepts of Shibui. An American is likely to see Shibui as just a “minimalist” approach, but that is only a tiny part of it.
We don’t have to become Japanese to let beauty infuse our world. We just have to practice a little more observation, concentration, inspiration, and interest in the little things of life, as well as the big, one rose bud in a vase as well as a rose garden.
We can take these thoughts further, by noticing the kind acts of strangers, the loving eyes of a grandchild, the smiles of our friends, etc.
But that’s a story for another day.
-o-
Ray Spitzenberger is a retired Wharton County Junior College teacher, a retired Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.