What does beauty show us? To C. S. Lewis, beauty pointed to another place. "The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust them," writes Lewis, "it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing."
Our poetry and photographs, our music and films, stir us with a beauty we struggle to communicate— mystery. "They are not the thing itself, ' Lewis continues. "They are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
By pursuing the beautiful in life, we invite mystery. God makes himself known in all creation, and yet the more time I spend planting flowers with my daughters, for example, the more I find his character revealed; not only in the visual beauty of the flowers themselves, but in how they bring me and the girls together and the life principles we learn from planting and growing. We discover the mystery of life and trace it to a God who cares enough about his children to reveal himself in the glory of pansies and black-eyed Susans.
Willard, Timothy (2014-10-14). Longing for More: Daily Reflections on Finding God in the Rhythms of Life (p. 113). Baker Publishing Group.
