Meditations and Confessions of Beauty

The road is out of the cold clouds, when people return to the dusk snow. I saw the weather report and it seems like there will be some snow there in the next few days.

On the other hand, California is a different world. The mountains behind me looking out from my study still have the stillness of late winter, but there are also signs of early spring. At this moment, I looked out the window and saw the misty spring rain. In the garden, a fruit tree stood erect between heaven and earth with a beautiful posture. The dead branches on the upper half of the tree stretch out in all directions, and the dark brown is sparsely dotted with a few white stars, which are the apricot blossoms in early spring. Sometimes when I look at it suddenly, it looks like a thin layer of snow drifting carelessly from the sky, caught halfway by a dead branch. Moreover, I sprinkle some more every day, and then sprinkle some more, gradually spreading from the branches downwards, like a scroll unfolding bit by bit. When it is in full bloom in the future, the spring snow will shine on a tree, and it will look more like a beautiful Japanese brocade, so beautiful that it will take your breath away. This is a banquet of eyes prepared by God for me who is weak in life and breath. It is a great grace for me in my illness.

I will accompany your white snow with apricot blossoms, and drink together the great beauty between heaven and earth.

Last year, I was ill for more than half a year. Although he recovered later, he is still weak at all times. I recently went to San Diego for a meeting and fell ill again with a cold when I came back. Now that I am getting better and better, what I want to tell you most is that God often uses the vegetation in nature to give us vital messages to encourage us. No matter how we linger in life, vegetation has always quietly revealed the power of life, growing strong, lush and gorgeous. Every time I see it, it brings me great comfort. This may be why many cards showing condolences to patients are printed with brightly colored flowers, shouting: "Life! Life!"

Just some combinations of colors and shapes can point people to a yearning for life and a yearning for beauty. It seems that beauty can give us some kind of life force, an upward force.

This is a very strange thing, because we all know that knowledge is power, and doing good can also generate strength, but beauty always makes people feel dispensable and has no real function. It is empty and ineffective. If it is lacking, people seem to be able to survive. So, why did God include beauty in creation? Have you ever thought about it?

I think beauty is a kind of spiritual nourishment, which can penetrate into all aspects of life and improve the quality of life. Although life aesthetics is a creation of human civilization, beauty is a gift from God. It's just that in our faith, although we are exposed to truth and goodness every day, we rarely see beauty. This makes the words written by our Christian authors always seem to be hard and the stories always seem rough. In terms of text creation, we have not yet left the Puritan era. It is all gray and colorless, making it suffocating to read. In contrast, in Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", even the word "A", which symbolizes shame, is a bright red against a gloomy background, which makes it appear more vital.

Don't underestimate the power of beauty, because beauty is absolutely powerful. Truth may be shocking, but beauty can directly impact people's hearts. People don't have much resistance to beauty. When beauty comes towards them, people will automatically disarm and surrender. This is why art, literature and music have no borders. When the mind analyzes and the heart moves, everything will naturally dissolve, absorb and infiltrate without explanation or argument.

We Christians need beauty even more. Because in our faith, whenever we emphasize that life must practice simplicity, beauty is often eradicated together. When we are encouraged to suppress and reduce our desires in terms of clothing, food, housing, and transportation in life, it seems that beauty is often obliterated. Christians can be said to be the group with the least aesthetics of life.

This is also because beauty and service life are in conflict with each other. Often our service is a Paul-style "pursue" and "run towards the goal", which portrays the image of being unable to sit on the warm seat and non-stop (this also includes my sense of guilt). In his book "Great Beauty in Heaven and Earth", Taiwanese writer Jiang Xun said when talking about aesthetics: "Beauty is the calmness of life." Almost all beauty is produced in a leisurely culture. Without leisure, there can be no sense of beauty.

So sometimes we really have to ask ourselves: Is our life leisurely? Is our life easy? Looking at it, our Christian life may be holy and upright, but it does not have the aesthetics of life. "Take a snail for a walk" advocated by the writer Zhang Wenliang. If it became a way of life, how many people would try to do it?

However, when Christians do not pay attention to beauty, the only beauty that exists in the world is the beauty in evil, the so-called "flower of evil." Remember what I said about people being irresistible to beauty? Beauty can be dangerous. If we do not cultivate a Christian aesthetics of life, when our souls long for the breath of beauty, we are likely to be tempted by the beauty of evil.

Our souls need the nourishment of beauty. But the paradox is that our hearts must have enough space before we can accommodate the existence of beauty. Therefore, we must continue to deepen our beauty, including learning how to be calm in life, leisurely, talking and laughing. A truly living Christian lives with a calm and generous attitude, one that is not alarmed by anything.

Coming back to us literary people, we must be more calm when writing. Although learning emphasizes serious study, creation is different. Creation must be completed in a calm manner. Tang Nuo, a writer in Taiwan, has a highly recommended book - "The Story of Words", which mentions that there is a deep relationship between play and creation. He said that Max believed that the real source of invention and creation was leisure, which was the "leisure theory of creation." If you think about it carefully, it makes sense. Creating while playing is actually what the Chinese call “playing with art.” We create too much sometimes, don't we? If you push yourself to a certain level, your works will be full of craftsmanship but lack spirituality. Using relaxed play to write meaningful works is a subversive learning.

We need more poets like David, who have the mood and leisure to watch the moon, stars, and mountains and seas, so that they can connect the relationship between nature and God and write verses like the following:

“I look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, and the moon and stars, where you have set them.” (Psalm 8:3)

“Therefore we will not be afraid, though the earth changes, though the mountains are shaken to the heart of the sea, though the waters in them roar and churn, though the mountains tremble with the rising seas.” (Psalm 46:2-3)

We also need philosophers like King Solomon who can present profound philosophical thoughts in beautiful images. When pointing out the beauty, fragility and shortness of life, he used four images to describe it in one sentence:

"The silver chain is broken, the golden jar is broken, the pitcher is broken at the spring, the water wheel is broken at the mouth of the well, the dust returns to the earth, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." (Ecclesiastes 12:6-7)

If we don't take the time to look at the external nature, and then knead it in our hearts, it will be difficult to form a sentence or article. Therefore, we need teachings and poems in our texts; we need logical reasoning and imagery. We need Paul among our group of authors, as well as David and Solomon. In life and in the soul, we must set aside a large space and time for the beauty in life.

Sharing this "meditation on beauty", I hope you don't get it wrong. I thought I discovered the existence of beauty only after I fell ill. That would really be called "sick beauty." With all my heart, I just want to remind you, and myself, that when life is so busy that there is no room for beauty, sooner or later people will get sick, not necessarily of the body, but more of the mind. I hope that we can all develop a unique and healthy life aesthetics. Enjoy a delicious feast every day!

Author profile

Could it be, whose real name is Chen Huiwan, is a lecturer at the Center’s Cultural Practice Camp “Literary Service, Spiritual Training and Creation Advancement”. Came to the United States from Taiwan at the age of eighteen. He worked as a computer engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company in California for six years, then specialized in writing, and now lives in Los Angeles. He has written five books including the essay "Passing By", two books including the essay "Love is Smart, Deep Love is Long", and five novels including "On the Edge of Love". I am in my prime, and it is a joy to write with my life!