In Search of Beauty

We live in a materialistic and consumer oriented world and still it leaves us craving for beauty. There are so many beauty products and equipments. Technology can mass produce beautiful merchandise. There are make-overs, cosmetic surgery, reimaging, reinvention, renovation. Still, we always look at the past as more beautiful - the places were far beautiful then; So, were the actors and actresses then. Fashion, likewise, was beautiful. When people wants to get away, it is to nature unspoilt by humanity and its so called progress.
Much of modernism and consumerism had left us with self-centeredness, hoarding, use, and abuse. We are clueless to what love, truth, and beauty are.
Beauty is the face of love but love isn't just visual and static. It is an experienced reality. The language of love is truth and so the experience of beauty must communicate truth.

Pope Benedict XVI recalling a concert performance of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach -- in Munich in Bavaria -- conducted by Leonard Bernstein. "At the conclusion of the final selection, one of the Cantate, I felt -- not through reasoning, but in the depths of my heart -- that what I had just heard had spoken truth to me, truth about the supreme composer, and it moved me to give thanks to God. Seated next to me was the Lutheran bishop of Munich. I spontaneously said to him: "Whoever has listened to this understands that faith is true" -- and the beauty that irresistibly expresses the presence of God's truth. (Gen Audience, Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Aug. 31, 2011)

St. Augustine in coming to know Christianity. “Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee. These things kept me far from thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for thy peace.” (Augustine of Hippo, Confessions)

Malcolm Muggeridge, on the other hand, entitled his book on the life of Mother Teresa of Calcutta as "Something Beautiful for God".

The illusion of beauty that modernism and consumerism offer, so often, degrades the human spirit. It does not celebrate the splendor of the truth. Authentic beauty goes beyond what we see because it leaves an imprint in the heart and soul. It touches the person - the whole person and lifts it higher to greater truths.

And our restless hearts will always impel us to search for beauty.