The Evoking Power of Art

  • Don Roe
  • Jul 20, 2008

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
They neither toil not spin, yet I tell you,
Even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed
like one of these.”
- Matthew 6: 28-29


One spring day ever a century ago, the American essayist poet, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, was hiking through the woods in New England when he cam upon a
blooming rhodora, a variety of the rhododendron. Inspired by this isolated loveliness
that might never have been noticed by human eyes, Emerson wrote these poetic lines:
“Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.”


What a line! “Beauty is its own excuse for being.” I wonder if we can really
believe that. We often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We think that
beauty is subjective and personal; but some people do believe that beauty is not just a
human perception. It is something build into nature itself.
It is fitting for us to ponder the existence of beauty both as it occurs in nature
and as it is created deliberately by we human beings. Though Mother Nature creates
thing that we find unattractive, for the most part, where new life emerges we do find the
results beautiful. Even baby alligators have an appealing charm and cute ness. In the
wonderful words of Ecclesiastes: “Everything is beautiful in its own time” (Ecc. 3:11).
We human beings have “copied” nature by creating our own kinds of beauty.
This goes back to the beginning of our existence – to the decorated pottery of ancient
cultures and to the gold jewelry of the Egyptians, the Aztecs and the Incas. The
splendor of the natural world and the splendor of human works of art join to make us
grateful that beauty is a possibility in our living. Art and beauty lift us above mundane
agenda and the stressful distractions that hamper our existence.
Yet beauty is more than merely a source of aesthetic enjoyment or personal
pleasure. The fact that beauty emerges throughout life can give us a basis for hope and
faith. In other words, there is a connection between religious faith and the existence of
beauty. We read in the Psalms that we are to “worship the hord in the beauty of
holiness.” The Book of Genesis reminds us that God’s very act of creation is not neutral
but it is good. Creation was valuable from the very start.
Jesus himself repeatedly referred to the beauty of nature as evidence of God’s
activity, seeing heaven in a grain of mustard seed, in wheat growing in a field, and in
leaven rising from a lump of dough. Jesus said, “Is not life more than food, and the body
more than clothing?” Then Jesus cited the beauty of the lilies as evidence
of God’s creative goodness which sustains us in our daily lives. Beauty is a witness to
the existence of the goodness and power of God.

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