In 2004, I wrote this piece about discovering the power of beauty in one of the most wonderful of Christmas songs. “Lo! How a Rose…: Experiencing the Power of Beauty.”
I was a kid from a home without music or books, and it was public schools that gave me these experiences in the late 1960’s. That’s why we don’t trash public schools here at IM. They made me what I am, and I get my check from a private Christian school.
This is an advent post, and a post about the presence of grace and beauty in the world. We do a good thing when we teach someone to appreciate it.
Who and what gave you a window into the the world of beauty?
The Internet Monk Archives 
Did my MA in theological aesthetics. Thanks for this post.
As for what gave me an ‘inaugurating’ experience of the beautiful (and I’m sad this post has so few responses) here are a few
Tolkien, being taken to my first Orchestra at the age of 22 (Rachmaninov), Hopkins’ “Pied Beauty,” seeing THE LADY OF SHALOT in the Tate gallery …
Those were early experiences anway.
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I grew up in a SB home in the deep south, but with parents who supported me in my love for music. I received very fine training in classical piano, and as I grew up I slowly began to find the sense of transcendence possible when one is so lost in beauty. I’m now almost finished with my master’s degree in piano performance, and I can say I have had many such transcendent experiences of the beauty possible when God’s creatures exercise their enormous skill and talent. Brahms, Schumann, Beethoven, Bach–these have been my windows into the wonder of beauty.
One particular instance comes to mind, though, that wasn’t at the piano: as a college freshman I had the (unbelievably rare!) opportunity, as a member of one of my conservatory’s top choirs, to sing with the Cincinnati Symphony and May Festival Chorus in a performance of Mahler’s 8th symphony. An experience I will never forget. Such power, intimacy, and love; being lost in the music, surrounded by the music, and a part of the music all at the same time–nothing like it!
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We always had music in the house–a radio in every room. The first time I felt the awe was in the presence of my distinctly untalented gradeschool orchestra. To feel the music washing over me was overwhelming.
Lately, I’ve been amazed at the beauty in people I’ve met. Sometimes its quantifiable, and sometimes you just feel their heart.
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I have got to spend more time in the archives.
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Wow, I am really struggling over how to answer this question. I think I’m struggling, not because the question is a bad one (it isn’t), but because my childhood experience was pretty dark and deeply scarring. The means of escape for me as a kid were the art and music classes my public school offered. I remember fondly Miss Cicco and Mrs. Barnes who taught these classes. I can’t tell you just how much teasing I had to tolerate as I was the kid in music class who volunteered to sing often, and the kid who really tried to excel in art class. I suppose, while I still can’t get my head around the concept of beauty, this is where I began to catch a glimpse of something juxtaposed to the majority of my experiences as a child.
Thanks, K
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When I was in sixth grade I homeschooled for a year. I had some other homeschooling friends that had hippy parents. They used to take me on nature walks with their children during the days. My family never took time to enjoy nature. These walks inspired me to look beyond myself. I think they were the start of my consideration of the infinite. I also came to appreciate nature very deeply. To this day I long to leave the city and surround myself by unadulterated creation.
As a teenager I also used to enjoy wandering through old cemeteries. They had a beauty in them. All the old tombstones expressed peoples deep emotions and grief. They also expressed something beyond me. It drew me toward God. I was forced to contemplate eternity. So much of our society is removed from death and nature. I’m thankful for that God taught me to see both of these aspects of life.
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Great Christmas song. I put it in the same category (beauty-wise) as “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “The Holly and the Ivy.”
My answer to the question:
1. Classical music, esp. Handel
2. R.C. Sproul’s “Recovering the Beauty of the Arts” video series.
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I learned beauty from playing the guitar. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all the guitar players in my life that let me hang around with them and play while they played. I made mistakes. They let me learn. For that, I will always be grateful. I am also grateful to my guitar teacher who taught me how to read music.
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Saturday at 6:15 a.m., my wife and I watched our 23 year-old daughter drive down the driveway on the way to pick up a friend to drive to Portland, Oregon to live for a while. She has a place to live but no job. We went back into the house to cry and express our feelings to each other. Sunday morning, our choir sang “Angus Dei” from a Michael W. Smith cantata. I sat with my head bowed during both services that they sang. I was singing with them with an intensity that almost astounded me. I knew so much my need for the Lamb of God in my life, for my wife, for both our daughters, for our congregation, for all the world. And, we also sang “Lo, How A Rose” during the service!
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I have always been a reader. A sentence well-crafted is the most delicious taste in the universe. It was not until I read Robert Frost as a college freshman that I experienced delight of another kind.
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Michael,
Ever read Michael Bentley Hart’s “The Beauty of the Infinite”? Not an easy read even for the scholarly-oriented…but talk about a window into the world of beauty! Gotta be one of the top 10 books I’ve ever read…and I still don’t grasp 3/4 of it.
Kinda like beauty itself.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
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I read the essay and left a thankful comment there. That piece of writing was a gift!
Other than through God, His word, and the church, the two places where I have found the most profound beauty in life have been in classical music and foreign (non-English speaking) films.
As a teenager in Alabama who was just beginning to discover classical music (and with it, the understanding that I would never be a “macho” man), I was moved to tears upon hearing Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the “Pastorale.” Young men in small-town Alabama did not listen to this sort of music, in general, and if it was known that they did, they could easily have been shamed and ridiculed for it. A few years later, I found a good male friend (also in Alabama) who shared my love for classical music. We remain friends to this day, despite our deep differences on faith (I’m a Christian; he is not). I am so grateful for him.
As for film, I don’t know that I will ever find more cinematic beauty than I have found in the films of Ingmar Bergman. Yes, they are dark (it’s basically a cliche to say that about Bergman films), even sometimes despairing, and they can be pretentious. However, they are also beautiful, in their serious explorations of God, life, death, meaning, etc., and in their discovery that the human face, with all of its expressions, is a unique work of art itself. There are no other films (that I know of) which display the human face in such moving and unforgettable ways! Thank God for beauty– even from those who tragically never saw that God is the source of beauty, such as Bergman!
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