Song of Songs 6:4-12
Begin by watching this video clip:
Windfarms are somewhat controversial. For some people, they are a blight on the landscape and maybe even a health risk. Others, however, would suggest not only are they beautiful, but windfarms are also part of the future of clean energy, a key component of taking better care of our world. But beauty is a complicated subject to talk about, mostly because it is hard to pin down what it is. There’s an old saying, isn’t there: ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ meaning something like ‘each person has their own response to beauty and their own reasons for thinking the way they do.’ Sitting behind that saying is possibly an assumption that there is no such thing as pure beauty, an ideal form of it. But I’d disagree. I think there is such a thing as objective beauty. And I think that objective beauty is one of the ways we can speak about God. I want to suggest to you today that beauty is an experience, it is something that happens to us, and whatever is truly beautiful is in some way connected to God. And once we have experienced beauty, experienced something of God’s presence, we are changed. And that change will make a difference to how we live our lives on this planet. A little summary quote for all of this: “Beauty will save the world.” That’s another quote from the writer Dostoyevsky, a different book this time. Beauty will save the world. We can debate what he means by those words. But for me it is quite simple today: the more we discover beauty in our world, the more we will seek to protect it. And once again, the Song of Songs got there before us.
In the Song of Songs, we find the Hebrew word for beauty (yafah) more than any other book in the Hebrew Bible. One third of all occurrences are found in this love poem. I guess that’s not too surprising. After love and beauty are fundamentally connected. Love is that which opens our eyes to beauty. You might know that from your own experience. When you love someone, or something, you see them differently. Others will see the same person or the same thing and just walk on by. But for you, the vision of that other being captivates you. That’s what we get in the Song of Songs. Over and again, the two lovers reach for ways to describe what they see when they look at each other. And the word ‘beauty’ appears many times. Their eyes have been opened by love to see the depths of each other, the beauty that resides in their souls. So what words do they use? How do they describe their experience of each other’s beauty? They go back to the natural world. Scented oils, wild animals, sunrises, landscapes, the taste of exotic fruit: all these things are useful in describing what they feel for each other. The beauty that they see in their beloved is connected to and part of the beauty that resides in all creation. It is all one in the end.
So a quick question for you to ponder before we move on: have you known that experience of beauty opening your eyes to something or someone?
I think it is no coincidence that as we disconnect from the beauty of nature, we start to turn people into objects, and nature into a resource to be used. We see that in our culture today. Look at how people treat each other on social media, how politicians go about their public debates, how we behave towards our natural world: you probably wouldn’t use the word ‘beautiful’; maybe the better word would be ‘ugly.’ Ugliness takes from us; it shrinks our souls and makes us behave badly towards others. Some researchers did a study of a prison population. Those prisoners who had a beautiful view to look at were better behaved and had more positive outcomes than those who looked at concrete all day. If our eyes are filled with ugliness, we begin to bring that ugliness to our relationships with others and the world. But we have a choice. We can choose to fill our eyes and our lives with beautiful things. Because beauty inspires, it gives us energy, it makes us courageous, and it opens us up to reality. It takes effort to see beauty sometimes, it takes an openness of spirit, but once you encounter beauty, your life is transformed.
We protect things that are beautiful. It changes the way we relate to them. Look at the Song for examples of that. For beauty, the man comes bounding over mountains, longing to be with his beloved. For beauty, the woman goes searching the street, sleepless until she is united with him again. Beauty makes us brave; beauty inspires us to stand up and fight for the thing that is beautiful to us. You can begin to see the connection to climate change. Our disconnection from the beauty of this world has led us to treat the planet poorly. What we need, then, is a reawakening, a rediscovery of the beauty of the natural world around us. And this must be experiential, I believe. It’s no good using our brains to make ourselves appreciate beauty. It’s like going to an art gallery and only appreciating the paintings once you’ve read that little card that explains it to you. The best approach is to simply sit and look, to notice how you feel, to let the art open your eyes to different perspectives. So too with nature. If we can spend time seeing it for what it is, allowing it to speak to us beyond our rational minds, then perhaps we will begin to be inspired. And if enough of us find that way of being, we will start to discover that our passion for extracting oil has diminished. We will realise that we’d actually like to keep that unique wetland rather than finding a way to pour concrete all over it. We will rethink how much we really want to eat animals, other creatures like us with faces. Maybe, an experience of beauty in creation will open our eyes to the ugliness of the ways we have been living on this our common home. In that sense, beauty will save the world.
Another quick pause to ponder a question: has your experience of beauty ever led you to do something brave? Can you imagine a situation where it would?
I think the lovers in our Song have tapped into the true power of beauty. So much of what our culture speaks of as beauty doesn’t really last all that long. When you press on it you realise it is hollow. It loses its shine very quickly. But the beauty that we see in the Song of Songs, that these lovers have discovered in their world and each other, is one that endures. And it probably won’t surprise you to hear that I think that all true beauty has a common source: God. God is beautiful. The psalmist said it best: One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. The beauty of God is a refuge, a place of safety, a place we go to find renewal and restoration. It is a source of life for us, if only we would take the time to ponder it more deeply.
And there’s another dimension to this we Christians should learn to ponder: in the cross of Jesus we see the divine beauty put on full display for the world to see. That might sound a bit odd, talking about crucifixion as a place of beauty. But that is what our faith teaches us: in this moment, God in Jesus was embracing the brokenness of humanity, taking into God’s own heart the pain of separation, the cost of sin, the burden of shame. And in return, God poured out healing and mercy and grace and love. That is beautiful. A place of pain becomes for us a place of immense blessing. This is the beauty that saves the world, ultimately speaking. So maybe for you, a meditation on the beauty of God might mean sitting with a cross and dwelling on the mystery and beauty of that act of God. To see the face of Jesus looking at you with compassionate eyes, smiling over your life, offering you forgiveness and healing. That kind of beauty can change your life; that is the beauty of God that resides in everything in all creation that we find beautiful.
The more we dwell in the presence of our beautiful God, the more beautiful we become as human beings. That beauty will look like kindness, compassion, generosity, patience, service, love of neighbour and enemy alike. And that beauty will look like tending creation, protecting habitats, and fighting for change in the way we live on this planet. So this week, may you discover many beautiful things. May they captivate your imagination, stir the senses of your body, open your mind, and restore your energy. May your connection to beauty of the earth be a reminder of your responsibility to care for God’s creation. And may you discover the beautiful God, who meets you with a love that heals and restores. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
p.s. if you'd like a prayer practice for bringing beauty with you, click here to download something I made earlier!
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