an excerpt from: Beauty

An excerpt from: Beauty

...THE “SENSE” OF DISCERNMENT IN THE HEART AND MIND

Since beauty embraced by the topical senses (sight, smell, hearing, etc…) is rather easy to discern, I want to push on the “senses” in the heart and mind, the senses that need development, so that all our senses would recognize beauty as their Author has designed them to.

When I recognize more beauty because of matured senses, I then experience more mature joy. For the artist, a more mature joy spills over to a more mature expression, a more mature artwork. A poet expresses something from within himself when he writes a poem. If there is only a little portion of truth or love or wisdom inside the poet, then only little truth, love and wisdom will be expressed. But if there were a grand portion of love or gratitude or discernment inside the poet’s soul, much could then be expressed. In fact, much would be expected from that poet.

Our topical senses are like the primer in a shot shell. The primer doesn’t hold the power. The primer is used to ignite the power of the gunpowder. I won’t land any live game if all I’m packing is primers. This is better known as a cap gun. Sure it was fun to run around as a kid taming the wild prairie with a cap gun. But that bit of fun doesn’t compare to the pleasure of that first time you felt all the fire power in a live round combust against your shoulder when you touched the trigger with live game in your sights! You don’t go back to cap guns after that. Understand this, our topical senses are not like the gunpowder - they are like primers, with the beautifully necessary role of igniting. They give us a taste of what may be to come; the combustion of a much larger powder keg of joy, elation, comfort or wonder in our souls when our souls are hit with the impact of true beauty.

Our senses can be fooled, so we must not trust in them, but rather take the information they give us and apply discernment to ascertain whether we have live game in our sights or a poacher’s decoy. We are not the only ones hunting. While we are hunting for pleasures, the devil is hunting for suckers. Peter warns us to “be soberminded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith!…” (I Peter 5:8-9a). The devil knows how our senses work better than we do, and he uses them to draw us into his lair. So when Peter says “be-sober-minded; be watchful…Resist [the devil],” he is exhorting us to have our full capacities of heart and mind engaged while beauty hunting, and not just our salivating palates of sight, smell, and taste.

When we are working with all our capacities (or senses) involved, and while on the path of obedience, our nose smells hard labor ahead or sufferings of various kinds, and it sends up a warning that this is going to be a tough road, the discerning governor should encourage us to be steadfast amidst the adversities because this is the path that leads to pure and deep beauty. But if all I have developed is my sense of smell, I will mislead myself away from the deep joys with the air of the first unpleasant aroma.

Peter exhorts the church elders to engage in the hard, dirty and beautiful work of eagerly “shepherding the flock of God that is among them” (I Peter 5:2) with the encouragement that the hard labor has a beautiful end. “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (I Peter 5:4). There is an “unfading crown of glory” at the end of a heavy, faithful labor where you may get old and torn and wrinkled and bruised and gray. You might not even be pretty anymore. Instead, you’ve become beautiful! Pretty has her time and place, but Beauty is ever welcome. Isaiah 52:7 says, “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation and says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” Feet are not pretty after a long hike, but a sure foot sure is beautiful.

It was shortsightedness (lack of discerning faith) that kept the Israelites out of the promised land for so long. The Lord told Moses to send spies into the land that He was going to give them. The spies went and recognized the land to be beautifully fruitful, flowing with “milk and honey” (Numbers 13:27). But only Joshua and Caleb applied faith to discern that the glory of God’s strength was more beautiful than the glorious strength of the Nephilim, to whom the Israelites appeared to be as grasshoppers (Numbers 13). Because the other ten spies did not apply faith to discern that in the beauty of God’s strength they can defeat the mighty inhabitants and have all that God has promised them for their inheritance, but instead passed on their pessimism to the people, that generation never experienced the beauty of God’s gift to them in the land of Canaan. They forfeited knowing deep, satisfying beauty due to their immature faith.

We do this all the time with art. Because we don’t understand and believe that everything is from God and through God and to God (Romans 11:36), we forfeit experiencing the different beauties that God has given us for our enjoyment. We miss so much beauty in the world and in art because we can’t see God at the beginning, the means, and the end of it. We must push on everything in life hard enough until we end up at God so that we can discern and enjoy the full beauty that God has ordained that it have.

What is beautiful about an artwork in the eyes of God? What is ugly about an artwork in the eyes of God? I suppose first we must learn to see as God sees, in His full counsel, if we are to answer those questions rightly. We need to see in faith if we are going to recognize beauty and fully enjoy her. And we need faith to discern what is actually a threat to our reaping the full portion of beauty. Faithlessness will keep us from experiencing the full portion of beauty in anything. “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23b ESV)...

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excerpt from The Affections of the Heart in Art - a wrestling for the full pleasures in art Jason Harms