In the midst of my own admiration, I turned around to see who else was experiencing this moment. Young girls dressed in festive Christmas velvet stood motionless while their eyes and ears absorbed the sound of this fleeting moment. I turned to see tears in my father’s eyes, which of course brought them to mine. It was a beautiful moment as our soprano sang a bittersweet Christmas carol to our bishop. I’ve seen this same reaction before when my husband sings at church and suddenly all people stop to look. It breaks them from their thoughts to behold something truly beautiful. This universality is encapsulated by something my mother had told me once, “true beauty is recognized by everyone.” Or as one of my favorite philosophers, Roger Scruton, says, “Beauty is an ordinary, everyday thing. It lies all around us”.
So why is it that everyone stops and stares when my husband starts singing? There have been various studies trying to identify a center of the brain that registers beauty or aesthetically pleasing experiences, but neuroscientific conclusions are generally inconclusive regarding “beauty centers” in the brain. However, one study did link the supposed beauty center in the brain to the same area of your brain that processes disgust and fear. This made me wonder if those that experience more pain are capable of seeing more beauty. I have seen this in my own life as I overcome new struggles- my capacity to appreciate art and beauty depends. As the years pass, what once was a beautiful painting is now appreciated for its details and ability to reflect beauty in a fallen world.
Last year, I was able to delve into this topic in a different way while volunteering for a women’s shelter by running a writing therapy/book group. The women in the shelter were people who had all been victims of abuse (parental or spousal, often both) and were currently undergoing intensive therapy, a renewed interest in faith as it was a Christian shelter and other support for their healing.
I didn’t know what to expect when working with them, but I decided to start with simple journal prompts and uplifting stories of heroism.They were all generally uneducated, many not having finished high school and I was told to avoid too much romance. Initially, we read beautiful stories of overcoming challenge and discussed them. They would come back every session with a written journal entry, reading some heartwarming but simple, straightforward stories.
Once we read more and discussed various styles of writing, their journal entries improved dramatically. One participant wrote about her experience abstractly, she explained that she didn't want to write about memories as her life had been too tragic. Instead, she wrote a story about a day in her life as a tree as she observed the beauty around her. The story went through a beautiful day beginning with the rising sun, followed by kids playing on her branches, a young couple in love having a picnic in her shade, birds singing at dusk and a fiery sunset, followed by the relieving cool of the night. When this woman read this aloud, we were awestruck with her creativity and depth. It did not take much for these women to tap into these creative centers and express them.
They were some of the most developed arbiters of beauty because there wasn’t anything preventing their authenticity. Prior to this experience, I felt that good writing was some sort of gift and creative talent. However, I realized that good writing is writing you can connect with and connection is a result of authenticity. It reminds me of something my other favorite philosopher, Josef Pieper, wrote “It has been said that only the pure of heart can laugh freely and liberatingly. It is no less true that only those who look at the world with pure eyes can experience its beauty.” These women took to writing deeply so quickly because they were freed from the bonds of self-consciousness and insecurity. Their suffering freed them.
However, it wasn’t the suffering alone that brought them this appreciation. These women were on a journey of making sense of their trauma through reading the Bible daily, praying, going through therapy and were in a safe environment. Their current trajectory of healing, coupled with their traumatic pasts resulted in these rich essays, life and honest expression.
So essentially… Dostoevsky is probably right, that beauty will save the world, but the question is how? Is it through preserving beauty in museums? It is likely not physical beauty since we know as Orthodox this is a fleeting gift. As these women have shown us, it is the beauty we can experience as we grow close to Christ. It is because we can understand the fullness and depth of beauty through sanctified suffering… through Christ-like suffering. As the newly canonized Saint Olga of Alaska says, “God can create beauty from complete desolation.”
This is definitely a new angle to look at beauty from! I love the way you write.