Trinity, Praxis, Beauty
Post 126.
Habitually, in modern-day ecological writing, the 13th Century Christian Saint Francis of Assisi is appealed to, due to his interrelational understanding of scripture, nature, and human existence. Even non-intellectuals know enough to place statues of this beloved saint in their front yards to indicate their care for Mother Earth. The dynamic things of nature, which we encounter superficially or intensely every day, and that we in the 21st Century have transfigured into dead objects to be examined but not encountered—wind-gusts, meadows, mountains, ponds, anthills, forest fires, boulders, thunder, beaches, and creeks—lived for Francis. Each encounter with these things was an opportunity for meeting family. Each animal, large or small, was also a brother or sister to be encountered too. But more than 400-years into the twin scientific and industrial revolutions, we have also transformed our living non-human brothers and sisters into objects, dead things. We have done this for so long we are unsurprised, though sometimes briefly incensed, when we hear another news story of baboons being dissected for research,[1] dolphins chock full of our discarded plastics,[2] polluted water for the latest superfluous tool,[3] or countless species losing their homes for a new suburban plot in the Global North,[4] often while exurbs decay, or to provide grazing land for ill-used cows in the rainforests of the Global South.[5] All because we want ever more. More what? Development? Progress? Stuff in which we’re already drowning? Another unconvivial tool?
Should it be surprising, then, that we feel feeble in the face of dehumanization? Children are transmogrified into objects by computerized curricula and testing regimes. The homeless, created and sustained by God, become objects we step over, avoid, and ignore. People we encounter every day, even ones we claim to respect, become means for an end for us—not opportunities for encounter, but for profit and our own economic prospects. The dissect ourselves from others, transfixing our eyes on smartphone screens and restrict our ears with air pods. Do we, dazed by the twin revolutions for science and industry, even realize we are alive? Do we understand we will die?
Contrasting with the bellowing scientific and industrial revolutions, within each of us dwells a persistent voice pushed to the backs of our minds. Francis and the Bible appeal for humble, satisfied encounters with others, not as objects but as creation, which we ourselves are also. “For we brought nothing into the world, just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it” (1 Tim 6: 7 NABRE). Human and non-human creation is, in the Franciscan cosmology, something to be encountered. Where have we, Christians, gone wrong?
As a music teacher, I aim to understand one of the foremost Christian transcendentals within the context of the triune God—the trinity. In many ways, my day job as a music teacher is about living, sharing, and uncovering Beauty. Because the trinity is, from before time, loving relationship, Christians are called to understand Beauty as action—Beautying. In Music Education philosophy, this position has been called praxialism, in opposition to the aesthetic philosophical stances that are more Platonic and treat artworks as objects fossilized and out-there.
Just as the Father loves the Son, and their love, the Holy Spirit, is shared with us in our everyday encounters, Beautying is a gift of that triune God, and understanding it as an imprint of the relational deity helps us better understand the nature of God and ourselves—who we are called to be, interrelational with creation. As such this I propose more than an aesthetic analysis of Beauty, the ossified Platonic conception of transcendentals as light, which many Christians have adopted over the Christian mystery of the relationship; but a praxial analysis of Beautying—beauty as action between intending creatures, a verb. Transcendental Beauty, from a trinitarian perspective, is a verb just as God is the transcendent verb, Love.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.[6]
This prayer, written in the spirit of St. Francis draws us to an active sense of God, intimately involved in our lived relationships. This God, who would have us sow love, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy cannot be reflected in a type of fixed Beauty of forms, where Plato’s cave-prisoner escapes to bask in a frozen “God.” That God that consoles, understands, loves, gives, and pardons is not represented well by that solitary idea of Beauty—the beauty experienced by the belly-gazing concert-goer listening, undisturbed, to a long-dead genius in a $100 million concert hall. The triune God disturbs us. This is the God that died on the cross—the ultimate action of Beauty as perfect, active, sublime Loving.
DS
Image link: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clover_bee_(20291778764).jpg
Endnotes:
[1] Brianna Bailey. “OU’s baboon breeding program is ending, but the animals will still be bred for medical research.” The Frontier (March 13, 2019). Link: https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/ous-baboon-breeding-program-is-ending-but-the-animals-will-stil/
[2] Robyn White. “Whales and dolphins are now partly made of plastic: Study.” Newsweek (August 11, 2023). Link: https://www.newsweek.com/whale-dolphin-plastic-study-1819201
[3] Cindy Gordon. “AI is accelerating the loss of our scarcest natural resource: Water.” Forbes (February 25, 2024). Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cindygordon/2024/02/25/ai-is-accelerating-the-loss-of-our-scarcest-natural-resource-water/
[4] “Biodiversity: State of habitats and species.” European Environment Agency (June 24, 2024). Link: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/topics/in-depth/biodiversity
[5] Seth Millstein. “Explainer: Agriculture affects deforestation much more than people realize.” Sentient Climate (May 8, 2024). Link: https://sentientmedia.org/how-does-agriculture-cause-deforestation/
[6] Link: https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/prayer/traditional-catholic-prayers/saints-prayers/peace-prayer-of-saint-francis/
Post 126.
Habitually, in modern-day ecological writing, the 13th Century Christian Saint Francis of Assisi is appealed to, due to his interrelational understanding of scripture, nature, and human existence. Even non-intellectuals know enough to place statues of this beloved saint in their front yards to indicate their care for Mother Earth. The dynamic things of nature, which we encounter superficially or intensely every day, and that we in the 21st Century have transfigured into dead objects to be examined but not encountered—wind-gusts, meadows, mountains, ponds, anthills, forest fires, boulders, thunder, beaches, and creeks—lived for Francis. Each encounter with these things was an opportunity for meeting family. Each animal, large or small, was also a brother or sister to be encountered too. But more than 400-years into the twin scientific and industrial revolutions, we have also transformed our living non-human brothers and sisters into objects, dead things. We have done this for so long we are unsurprised, though sometimes briefly incensed, when we hear another news story of baboons being dissected for research,[1] dolphins chock full of our discarded plastics,[2] polluted water for the latest superfluous tool,[3] or countless species losing their homes for a new suburban plot in the Global North,[4] often while exurbs decay, or to provide grazing land for ill-used cows in the rainforests of the Global South.[5] All because we want ever more. More what? Development? Progress? Stuff in which we’re already drowning? Another unconvivial tool?
Should it be surprising, then, that we feel feeble in the face of dehumanization? Children are transmogrified into objects by computerized curricula and testing regimes. The homeless, created and sustained by God, become objects we step over, avoid, and ignore. People we encounter every day, even ones we claim to respect, become means for an end for us—not opportunities for encounter, but for profit and our own economic prospects. The dissect ourselves from others, transfixing our eyes on smartphone screens and restrict our ears with air pods. Do we, dazed by the twin revolutions for science and industry, even realize we are alive? Do we understand we will die?
Contrasting with the bellowing scientific and industrial revolutions, within each of us dwells a persistent voice pushed to the backs of our minds. Francis and the Bible appeal for humble, satisfied encounters with others, not as objects but as creation, which we ourselves are also. “For we brought nothing into the world, just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it” (1 Tim 6: 7 NABRE). Human and non-human creation is, in the Franciscan cosmology, something to be encountered. Where have we, Christians, gone wrong?
As a music teacher, I aim to understand one of the foremost Christian transcendentals within the context of the triune God—the trinity. In many ways, my day job as a music teacher is about living, sharing, and uncovering Beauty. Because the trinity is, from before time, loving relationship, Christians are called to understand Beauty as action—Beautying. In Music Education philosophy, this position has been called praxialism, in opposition to the aesthetic philosophical stances that are more Platonic and treat artworks as objects fossilized and out-there.
Just as the Father loves the Son, and their love, the Holy Spirit, is shared with us in our everyday encounters, Beautying is a gift of that triune God, and understanding it as an imprint of the relational deity helps us better understand the nature of God and ourselves—who we are called to be, interrelational with creation. As such this I propose more than an aesthetic analysis of Beauty, the ossified Platonic conception of transcendentals as light, which many Christians have adopted over the Christian mystery of the relationship; but a praxial analysis of Beautying—beauty as action between intending creatures, a verb. Transcendental Beauty, from a trinitarian perspective, is a verb just as God is the transcendent verb, Love.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.[6]
This prayer, written in the spirit of St. Francis draws us to an active sense of God, intimately involved in our lived relationships. This God, who would have us sow love, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy cannot be reflected in a type of fixed Beauty of forms, where Plato’s cave-prisoner escapes to bask in a frozen “God.” That God that consoles, understands, loves, gives, and pardons is not represented well by that solitary idea of Beauty—the beauty experienced by the belly-gazing concert-goer listening, undisturbed, to a long-dead genius in a $100 million concert hall. The triune God disturbs us. This is the God that died on the cross—the ultimate action of Beauty as perfect, active, sublime Loving.
DS
Image link: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clover_bee_(20291778764).jpg
Endnotes:
[1] Brianna Bailey. “OU’s baboon breeding program is ending, but the animals will still be bred for medical research.” The Frontier (March 13, 2019). Link: https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/ous-baboon-breeding-program-is-ending-but-the-animals-will-stil/
[2] Robyn White. “Whales and dolphins are now partly made of plastic: Study.” Newsweek (August 11, 2023). Link: https://www.newsweek.com/whale-dolphin-plastic-study-1819201
[3] Cindy Gordon. “AI is accelerating the loss of our scarcest natural resource: Water.” Forbes (February 25, 2024). Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cindygordon/2024/02/25/ai-is-accelerating-the-loss-of-our-scarcest-natural-resource-water/
[4] “Biodiversity: State of habitats and species.” European Environment Agency (June 24, 2024). Link: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/topics/in-depth/biodiversity
[5] Seth Millstein. “Explainer: Agriculture affects deforestation much more than people realize.” Sentient Climate (May 8, 2024). Link: https://sentientmedia.org/how-does-agriculture-cause-deforestation/
[6] Link: https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/prayer/traditional-catholic-prayers/saints-prayers/peace-prayer-of-saint-francis/
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