Fortune 500

I am reading a book by Donald Miller called Blue Like Jazz, and enjoying it. I've been falling asleep with my face in it, and spending every spare minute trying to get through another few pages. It's that interesting to me. Maybe it's just that it's the right season for that book and I to be interacting. Weird, because I bought the book at least a year ago, and have tried to read it multiple times before with no success - I just couldn't get into it. Now, though - now is the time.

It's not that Donald Miller is such an incredible writer. I mean, I enjoy his writing, but I'm positive there are many who won't. It's like reading a blog, I suppose - a bunch of his stories and thoughts separated by chapter headings once in a while. He talks about his journey, the people he's met, things he's experienced, doubts and struggles he's having. He makes me remember that it's good to be awake and alive - good to know you're flawed like everyone else, and you waste your breath trying to sound like you aren't. He writes what everyone's been thinking and afraid to spit out. And he talks about how it's been in this realness that he's finally been able to walk in God's love - to receive it and love him back because of it. How can we ever experience grace until we let the love of Jesus smash up against our humanity? Patching things up before we invite him in never let's him accomplish what he was coming in to do. I think he wants us to see ourselves - and then see ourselves in his eyes.

I was talking to Heidi recently about a revelation I was having about beauty. (This isn't going where you think it's going - I'm not going to write about whether or not, on any given day, I think I'm beautiful. I do, by the way, think I'm beautiful - or at least I'm coming to believe it as a direct result of what I'm about to say.)

I remember a wedding I went to about 7 years ago...two people who were slightly older than me in college, people that were in the same campus ministry I was in. Everyone knew who they were - thought they were a great example of how it (all of it) should be done. And it's true - there was always a purity about the two of them. I recall seeing them walk into my favorite coffee shop (the Mill - www.millcoffee.com) and observing their interactions with each other and with their friends, in the days and weeks before their wedding. I liked them. I thought it was sickeningly sweet, but I liked the fact that they glowed about each other. I wondered if I would get a taste of that someday, if I would have someone in my life who would watch me and smile when I wasn't looking, someone to get me more napkins when I spilled my coffee because the base of the table was tippy, somebody to get down on the floor and stuff some notebook paper under it so it would be steady for me to lean on. Then I would realize I was definitely staring and should get back to my homework. But it makes it really hard to concentrate when love is in the room.

Even though I wasn't directly in their circle of friends at the time, they knew I was a cellist and she wanted strings at her wedding. I had a quartet, and needed the money. So I went - and I must have played because I got paid - but the only thing I can remember from that day was the bride. I remember seeing her in the hallway of the church before the ceremony started - and she was stunning. Her dress, her hair, all of it - it was like something out of a movie. She was beautiful. And that's the thing about it - she is, very obviously, beautiful in real life. It's not like it was the dress. But I can't explain to you what I saw that day - I couldn't even put words together to say anything to her. She was totally lit up - totally, breathtakingly beautiful. And the image of it is ingrained in my mind. I can't forget it.

Somebody says, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I've heard that. I thought I knew what it meant too. It's like saying, "Well, I don't think your shitzu is that cute, but if to you she is, then ok." It applies what is generally thought to be true about the nature of beauty - that it's subjective, dependent upon each person's opinion and taste. False on both accounts. True beauty isn't subjective, and that isn't what the saying means.

I heard a speaker once that talked about the "three transcendentals" - three concepts that are true for all people at all times. He said the first is Truth. There are things that are, things that are not, and our lack of knowledge doesn't change the things that we aren't aware of being real. The second, he said, is Goodness. There is a right and wrong, good and evil. Not hard for those with a Christian world view to connect with. And the third, Beauty. This is where it gets a little challenging - we have probably accepted the fact that there is such a thing as Truth and Goodness which are not subjective but based on the Word of God. But Beauty? We still like to think we can throw that word around and latch it onto whatever we like - or whatever you like, even if I don't like it. You think that painting is beautiful? Fine. But I don't agree. My perception of beauty doesn't have to be the same as yours. It's your opinion.

I think we've got that wrong. I agree with the rest of that speaker's lecture - and if anyone would like to hear it, I bought the tape. I knew even then (8 years ago?) that he was saying something profound - something I didn't quite have the fullness of yet. He said that we can know Truth, because God is Truth, and Goodness because God is Good. When we come to know God, we begin to run into these things - we begin to weigh what is in the world around us by these measures - is it true? Is it good? But we have forgotten that the initiator of all real Beauty is God himself. And I believe we can train our hearts and minds to know it when we see it - indeed, we'll find that when we dust ourselves off a bit, we do this pretty naturally. I've seen sunsets that made me cry. I've been giddy with excitement at the sight of the mountains, the ocean, walked for hours just to get away from ambient noise and hear the trickle of a stream in stillness, and been totally speechless looking out over a waterfall so powerful you feel the earth shaking before you can see or hear any water. We are made to respond to this - to recognize and be thrilled by beauty. You know it when you want to join it - be a part of it. Run through the field of wildflowers, climb the mountain, paint the sunset, take a picture of a view so wide no camera could do it justice - but we try anyway. Why? Because we want it. We know we are made for these moments - something in us wakes up.

John Hodges (the aforementioned speaker) described this "waking up" by explaining it's connection to the Creation, and the Fall. Adam and Eve were in the garden - paradise. Perfection in every way - walking with God, talking to him face to face, all joy and pleasure, knowing and known. And then it was broken - a wall built between mankind and God, between us and perfection. All this time, and we still haven't forgotten - deep in our bellies we know we are made for something more. We yearn for it. We can't even name what it is half the time, but we are faced with a deep longing when we are alone. God wants us to be reminded. He wants us to remember what we were made for - walking with him - talking to him face to face, joy, pleasure, perfection in every sense of the word. So he reveals it to us, just for a moment - pulls back the curtain between us and eternal paradise just long enough for our hearts to race with excitement and our minds to grasp for comprehension...and then poof. It's gone as quick as it came, and we're left there panting, trying to describe what can't be spoken, trying to fathom how we can go on without whatever we just experienced.

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." (Romans 1:20)

So is He beautiful? I don't think that any Believer of the Gospel would hesitate to call beauty one of His "invisible attributes" which evidence themselves in Creation. He is Beautiful. Divinely Beautiful. He can't help it - it's who he is, and it's how he moves, and it's what he does. He makes all things Beautiful.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

He makes all things Beautiful, and has put eternity is in our hearts - so we'd recognize and remember who we are.

So here's what I think about beauty being "in the eye of the beholder." The statement is actually true, when you understand that it's commenting not on the beholder, but the object of the beholder's gaze. Something beautiful makes a reflection of that beauty shine in the eyes of the one admiring the beauty. It's in their eyes - you see the reflection of beauty "in the eye of the beholder." The bride I talked about before? She was gloriously beautiful. But she was glowing and beautiful before that day - it's just that I saw it intensified that day. And you know what I think that is? It's the same thing I've seen on every bride who loves Jesus that I've watched walk down the aisle since then - it's the reflection of Love. She is made beautiful by his love.

We are made beautiful, Bride, by His Love. When our gaze is on him, we reflect the Beauty of God, his Love, his purposes and plans, his joy in his creation, his delight in our attention and affection, our offering ourselves. And when people see our faces when our hearts are fixed on Him, we look different - we shine. We are beautiful. But it's not our own beauty - it's really His Beauty.

Amazing.