“If you have been afraid that your love of beautiful flowers and the flickering flame of the candle is somehow less spiritual than living in starkness and ugliness, remember that He who created you to be creative gave you the things with which to make beauty and the sensitivity to appreciate and respond to His creation” (Edith Schaeffer, The Hidden Art of Homemaking).
The holiness of beauty is something I haven’t always grasped.
I spent my younger days chasing after beauty at the expense of truth. When truth was finally something I could no longer ignore, I assumed the righteous thing to do was forsake beauty. I was often discouraged that many of my interests seemed so unspiritual… art and literature and the sea and my love for making homes out of drab, old spaces.
The irony of it all, was that I don’t think I was able to truly grasp the beauty of truth until I learned to see the holiness of beauty. It brought theology to life for me.
And it’s one of the biggest things I yearn to teach my children. Because I want them to see God whether they’re singing a hymn in church, or watching the sun set, or enjoying life with a friend, or staring at a mountain, or sketching a lady bug, or walking through a museum full of masterpieces, or reading an excellently told story, or observing their granddad skillfully build a house or a table…
Because beauty always points to the One whom it reflects.
