CAN BEAUTY SAVE THE WORLD?

 



My vicar Kathryn recently went to a conference with this title, where they were exploring how much music and the arts can influence humanity for the good and how to make it happen more. I was instantly overjoyed that there could be such a conference with such a purpose and enough people asking that question to make it happen. It had a resonance deep in my soul for what has become a motivating force in my life.

          Some good while ago I made a decision not to focus on all the extreme               sorrow, suffering and basic hell that is increasing in this world - (I used             to try to be an intercessor for the nations but that nearly destroyed                     me) - but rather to plant flowers on the bomb site where and when I                  could.

         I was a hippy in the 70's and so deeply influenced by the incredible                     happening that was Woodstock. If you haven't ever heard of this, it was a          music festival in the USA where half a million people got drawn to an                 event that became a counter cultural happening, defining what in                     essence the hippy movement was seeking - Peace, Beauty and Love. With         all my heart I wished I could have been there, it became part of my DNA.             The chorus to Joni Mitchell's song 'Woodstock' expressed it this way : -

                                  We are stardust, we are golden

                                   And we've got to get ourselves back to the Garden.

            Knowingly or unknowingly we were seeking the Eden that was lost to                 us. (So lovely that Yasger 's farm where the festival took place was in a              town called Bethel). It is now on the National Register of Historic                        Places.        

            When I became a Christian I began to understand the things I                               felt so deeply (and still do) but also that we need the transforming                     grace of Christ to get anywhere near to recreating Eden. In two periods             of my life, totalling 17 years, I gave everything to a Christian                                 community that was also seeking to build heaven on earth by living                 true to the commands of Jesus. There were hundreds if not thousands                 of us over the years. I'm not now disillusioned by it's downfall and                     rightful undoing - too much human  sin had crept in through the back                 door causing untold damage. But most of us were  trying!


                So, can beauty change the world?

                                For God is sheer beauty, all-generous in love

                                 Loyal always and ever.  Psalm 100 v 5


           As artist Makoto Fujimura says in an interview with the magazine                        Christianity Today "God is not just a source of beauty, He is beauty. That             reality encompasses everything that is fallen and broken and calling us             to be a place He can come home to."


         I think that where beauty is, there is God. Like the orchestra of                             Auschwitz or the poetry from World War 1 trenches, it is powerful and             can change lives!  It opens our hearts to the possibilities and realities of           heaven and to God, even if we don't realise that is Who we are searching           for. The painting I used to illustrate this little blog post was trying to             to express this.


         I wrote a poem in 2018...

                                   All beauty streams from its divine birth

                                   And written in the heavens and the earth

                                   In myriad, miniscule, majestic ways

                                   Is Thy Name - Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh!


            So I say 'Yes! Beauty can heal the world!' and I send out an appeal, to                  myself and anyone reading this: Create beauty wherever and                             however you can! Whether in the creative arts or in loving acts, you are              spreading the truth of God and sending out a stream of life giving                     healing.             


              

              



 


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