Post 146.
Unlike friendship, Love (caritas) is offered to friends and enemies alike (Matthew 5:44; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II, Question 23), which seems to share similarity with Beautying. When a band records a new album, a sculptor puts their work in a public square, or a crafter offers a bracelet on Etsy, their artwork would fail if it only drew interest from friends. But other acts of beauty—a lullaby, a campfire song, a blanket knitted for a new baby—are almost entirely contained within friendship. Friendship involves eye-to-eye conversations, help in times of need, common meals, shared experiences of all sorts; and is therefore a particular kind of love. Perhaps the deepest: But love is bigger than friendship. In love we may buy a meal for a destitute stranger or give to a global charity that feeds the hungry. For Catholics and many other Christians, love is enacted through what are called the Corporal Works of Mercy—feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. These expressions of love cannot be limited to friendship—one must not only love those with whom they are friends. The Good Samaritan cared for the stranger, and so must we.
Because we enact beauty from the limited consciousness of a human—we are not God—many of our beautiful acts have lives beyond our awareness. A painting may be discovered long after the painter’s death and find its way into an elite museum. My undergraduate music teacher professor, Vahe Barberian, worked extensively to produce performances of his deceased father’s symphonies. In the 21st Century, sometimes something as simple as singing Happy Birthday as a family might go viral, and touch millions of people’s lives—if only for an instant before they each swipe on. Like acts of love, the life and results of an act of beauty, given to a stranger are unknown by any but the Lord. Intention matters, likely more than results if only because results are beyond us, especially the omniscience needed to predict perfectly the results of any free act.
We enact beauty because God is perfect Beauty, the creator of Beauty—the cistern from which we draw our beautiful acts. To take the time to beauty is to have a certain kind of faith in the future—like planting a tree that will take a century to reach maturity, and may be cut down by someone else. Some musicians make money songwriting, but others live lives in obscurity, writing songs for some other reason. To create something beautiful and meaningful is to hope for relationship with both other people and something unknown and unknowable, the mysterious spiritual Being who is Beauty.
Daniel Shevock
Link to image (Jan Van Delen, Caritas): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jan_Van_Delen,_Caritas_(1673-80),_KBS-FRB.jpg
Unlike friendship, Love (caritas) is offered to friends and enemies alike (Matthew 5:44; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II, Question 23), which seems to share similarity with Beautying. When a band records a new album, a sculptor puts their work in a public square, or a crafter offers a bracelet on Etsy, their artwork would fail if it only drew interest from friends. But other acts of beauty—a lullaby, a campfire song, a blanket knitted for a new baby—are almost entirely contained within friendship. Friendship involves eye-to-eye conversations, help in times of need, common meals, shared experiences of all sorts; and is therefore a particular kind of love. Perhaps the deepest: But love is bigger than friendship. In love we may buy a meal for a destitute stranger or give to a global charity that feeds the hungry. For Catholics and many other Christians, love is enacted through what are called the Corporal Works of Mercy—feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. These expressions of love cannot be limited to friendship—one must not only love those with whom they are friends. The Good Samaritan cared for the stranger, and so must we.
Because we enact beauty from the limited consciousness of a human—we are not God—many of our beautiful acts have lives beyond our awareness. A painting may be discovered long after the painter’s death and find its way into an elite museum. My undergraduate music teacher professor, Vahe Barberian, worked extensively to produce performances of his deceased father’s symphonies. In the 21st Century, sometimes something as simple as singing Happy Birthday as a family might go viral, and touch millions of people’s lives—if only for an instant before they each swipe on. Like acts of love, the life and results of an act of beauty, given to a stranger are unknown by any but the Lord. Intention matters, likely more than results if only because results are beyond us, especially the omniscience needed to predict perfectly the results of any free act.
We enact beauty because God is perfect Beauty, the creator of Beauty—the cistern from which we draw our beautiful acts. To take the time to beauty is to have a certain kind of faith in the future—like planting a tree that will take a century to reach maturity, and may be cut down by someone else. Some musicians make money songwriting, but others live lives in obscurity, writing songs for some other reason. To create something beautiful and meaningful is to hope for relationship with both other people and something unknown and unknowable, the mysterious spiritual Being who is Beauty.
Daniel Shevock
Link to image (Jan Van Delen, Caritas): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jan_Van_Delen,_Caritas_(1673-80),_KBS-FRB.jpg
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