She Never Coerces – Looking at Life Through Beauty … 

By Ed Rybarczyk 

Why is there so much strife today? How is it that dearly-held friendships can so quickly unravel? Why does it seem like society is coming apart at the seams? One fitting answer to our collective unraveling is that we no longer perceive life in shared ways. Subsequently, long-established value systems have fallen apart. The institutions that form the skeletal structure for collective life have been invaded and re-programmed. The social glue that held relationships together for centuries has been bathed in a corrosive solvent of cynicism and suspicion. What used to be minor irritations are now major flashpoints. What can we Christians do? 

For 15 years I taught a college theology class titled, “Developing a Christian Worldview.” The more I studied and analyzed contemporary American culture, the more I grew to realize that the issue of perception was, in significant ways, the root of societal dissolution. We no longer look at life in sweepingly shared ways. We no longer believe deeply-held things about the most important issues in life. And that’s true even across the varied church denominations. Again, one is shaken to one’s core: “What can I do?” 

Well, we cannot give up. We cannot become weary in well doing (Gal. 6:9). We cannot despair. After all, we serve a faithful Lord who was, himself, faithful to the end. In both the light of Christ (our ultimate north-star orientation) and the darkness of our fractious era, I suggest an alternative approach to perceiving life: beauty. 

Why beauty? Because beauty is a non-confrontive offer. Beauty never forces herself upon anyone. Beauty never coerces anyone to recognize her. Beauty always comes in peaceful, non-violent ways. Beauty is a gift, an invitation to union, a quiet space between power grabs, a loving offer. Beauty suggests that there is a something-more woven into life (both eternity and eternal qualities), but she never grabs anyone by the throat and forces them to acknowledge her. Given her own peaceful demeanor, is it any wonder, then, that she is so easily ignored, boxed up, and stored away in the basement by today’s violence and love-of-death? 

Think with me: western culture, driven by cynicism, has taught itself to say, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” In schools, the arts – modes of beauty – are always the first programs to face budget cuts. Beauty, together with her sisters goodness and truth, has been intentionally eliminated. And the craven spiritual logic for this elimination goes like this: if there are transcendent values that abide across life, if there are qualities that are greater than the self, then they are threats. After all, if transcendents are greater than the self-as-king they must be destroyed! Abiding and transcendent values threaten the self as the ultimate standard. Transcendents threaten the whims and wiles of the heart. Goodness, truth, and beauty – the three classic transcendents – threaten the notion that “I” am the final arbiter for doing reality. 

But for millennia hardly anyone believed beauty was a subjective fabrication. For centuries  following Jesus western culture agreed that beauty is objectively real. When asked, “What is beauty?”, Aristotle pithily answered by saying, “That is a blind man’s question.” No right-minded person denied the existence of beauty.   

There’s some macrocosmic, big-picture framing for you. What about microcosmic, real-life, twenty-first century application? A couple, sure. 

First, for Christians and our mission? We need to stop viewing people as evangelistic targets and start viewing them as human persons. The evangelical tendency is to see a non-believer and begin wondering how to witness to them in order to get them saved. Me? I’m all for sharing the gospel! But this is a matter of prioritization, not a binary all-or-nothing matter. If we looked at people as beings whom Jesus wants to heal, renew, and transform, instead of as notches on our soul-winning gun holsters, they would hear and perceive us differently. If we acted first toward relational ends instead of forcing some targeted goal, we would be experienced by others as more-authentic. This would be a subject-to-subject interaction instead of a superior-to-inferior transaction. We would be treating them as beautiful, in themselves. 

For His part, Jesus treated everyone as having been created in the image of God. He never spoke down to anyone. Even when He was irritated or prophetic He never spoke or acted condescendingly. Fittingly, we could say that Jesus, out of His own beauty as the incarnate God, acted with beauty toward the beauty of others. This is remarkable: Jesus, even when He was rebuking someone, never dismissed people’s agency. He never talked to them like they were incapable. Never believed they were victimized beyond repair. Characterized by beauty, Jesus offered them the truth in beautiful fashion. 

Second, beauty can help us to perceive and navigate life aware that there is always a something-more going on, there are invisible elements to life that go deeper. On this point, we ought to prefer quality over quantity. When choosing close friends? Quality over quantity. Pour into that treasured relationship like never before; such relationships are so rare! At Sunday church? Oh please, quality over quantity. At the supermarket? Quality over quantity. And believe me, because I tend toward being a penny-pincher, I am aware this is a matter of budgeting! I’m not urging fiscal irresponsibility. But across our lives it is true that quality is as important as quantity. Like my brother puts it, “Buy once, cry once.” Try to budget for the best instead of the merely sufficient. 

Finally, because beauty doesn’t play by the rules of our strictly transactional culture, begin praying and asking the Lord where beauty is present if somewhat hidden. Look to find the good in a person or a situation. Treasure a word of truth that is spoken in a crowd of liars. God’s Holy Spirit can awaken you to the beauty that is woven through life, even if it is hard to perceive. 

Ed Rybarczyk, PhD, is both an ordained minister and a retired History of Theology professor. He now produces and hosts the Uncensored Unprofessor podcast @ uncensoredunprofessor.com. He can be reached at [email protected].