Life is Beautiful

I like to tell stories. Writing about the Christmas tree fiasco was a lot of fun. Maybe I'll do more of that soon.

For now, though, I have some slightly more abstract thoughts. I have been thinking a lot lately about the concept of beauty. I’m sitting in my parent’s house looking around the room at my mother’s artwork, and I’m astounded by how lovely it is (witness the example posted here). I grew up immersed in this ever-evolving display of color and light expanding from my mom’s paintbrush, and I think it has profoundly shaped me as a person.

But over the last few years, I somehow developed a deep skepticism toward beauty, whether it was beautiful people or beautiful places like Furman’s campus. Beauty is often a veneer used to hide ugly things. People, men and women alike, often sculpt their bodies into “perfect” forms while maintaining eating disorders or other obsessive, self-destructive habits. Sometimes, it even seems like some of the most physically attractive people are also among the most unbalanced and self-centered (just read People magazine for examples).

Furthermore, over the last few years I began to develop concern for the marginalized and disadvantaged members of society. And with that development, I also tended to see gorgeous homes and immaculately landscaped lawns as mere manifestations of the greed and injustice that characterize this broken world. Nowhere was this more apparent than in South Africa—I traveled there with Furman in winter 2005—where some of the most beautiful resort locations on earth were crafted under the laws of the apartheid regime that constructed luxuries for the privileged whites on the blood, sweat, and tears of the black majority. Because of things like this, I was becoming very wary of any manifestation of beauty, simply because of the sin for which it often serves as a disguise.

These experiences shaped my outlook on life. I was beginning to think of the creation of beauty as an activity that was unrelated to the work of social justice. True confession: I guess I felt a little self-righteous about it. Those who work in the most beautiful places typically only serve the richest of people, and I wanted no part of that.

Ironically, in September I found myself at Osprey Point, where the Trinity Forum Academy is housed, in a breathtakingly beautiful environment on the Chesapeake Bay. I could not have landed in a more awkward place for someone who was wary of any sign of beauty. Not only is the place naturally beautiful, but also my work at the OP retreat center could all be called “beautification”: making the bathrooms spotless, polishing the silverware until it looks like little mirrors, and preparing/serving delicious, impeccable plates of gourmet food for often wealthy guests.

Being at Osprey Point has forced me to reconsider some of my blanket skepticism toward beauty and those who work to achieve/create it. This happened both on a purely practical level—it’s hard to despise people who work to make things beautiful when you and your friends are those very people—and on a more theoretical level.

I’m thinking specifically about what is often called “the cultural mandate” in Genesis 2. God creates humans, male and female, in His image to “have dominion” over the earth—both living creatures and non-living matter. He tells them to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it. What does this mean? Well, one could accuse me of projecting my ideas back onto the text here, but it seems that Genesis 2 is saying something like this: humans were created to make the earth more beautiful by ordering and subduing its forces and materials in a way that gives glory to God and extends his image. He made a beautiful, good earth, yet he told Adam and Eve to tend the garden, to fill and subdue the earth. Before the fall, this must have meant creative, artful acts like animal naming and landscape architecture (Gen 2:15); in other words, ordering and arranging God’s good creation in such a way that made it even more beautiful.

This, of course, would change dramatically after the fall and God’s curse of both humans and the earth. In Genesis 4, there does not seem to be any time for dedicating to the beautification of the created world. Cain murders his brother and is banished to wander and build a city. Crime and social injustice is cropping up everywhere (Gen 5). This is more like the world that we live in now. How can anyone today concern themselves with cultivating gardens and making things beautiful when the world is full of social injustice?

So the question is: what does the cultural mandate look like now in a world that is so fallen and full of injustice? Are we supposed to ignore the pre-fall impetus to make the earth more beautiful and glorifying to God? I do not think so. It’s only that now, social justice work has become prerequisite to the fulfillment of the original mandate. The two seemingly separate pursuits, art/beautification and social justice, are actually contiguous tasks on a continuum toward the fulfillment of God’s design for human life.

The fact is, you cannot ultimately make beauty and simultaneously neglect the work of justice, because the decay of the world—war and crime specifically—will corrupt and destroy your art. Just as the thorn and thistle will overcome your garden, graffiti or theft or war will eventually shatter the environs you have worked to make beautiful.

So I am starting to see the creation of beauty (or the creative ordering of existing things in beautiful ways) as a fulfillment of the cultural mandate and as a task that is complimentary, not opposed, to the pursuit of social justice. The goal of social justice work cannot simply be the alleviation of poverty. It has to have some greater aim in mind or it dies in implementation (look at the last half-century of social welfare legislation for confirmation). The aim of social justice work has to be greater. It should ultimately be the creation of a beautiful society and earth filled with human beings who are free to live creative, artistic lives.

I’m still in my parents’ living room surrounded by beautiful artwork. And I do not think it is a coincidence that, after growing up in a household filled with beautiful artwork and beautiful living, I have grown to care about social justice. Maybe tasting and seeing what is beautiful has helped me see why we have to care for the needy—not merely to alleviate suffering, but to help others to enjoy and participate in what is good and beautiful about God’s world.