Beauty and transcendence

One of my favorite blogs, Beauty Tips for Ministers, is written by a Unitarian Universalist minister in Massachusetts. It focuses primarily on the importance of presenting ourselves in a way that communicates to others that we have something of value (the gospel of Christ!) to share with the world and deserve to be taken seriously.

She recently posted some reflections on her recent trip to London. Much of it is specific to particular museums and other experiences, but in the midst of the post was this gem:

I feel very strongly that a huge part of the poverty of soul in America right now is that we are surrounded by mass-produced products and living in aesthetically depressing wastelands of strip malls and chain stores. Signage is utilitarian, our forms of entertainment are an assault on the eyes, and human beings have given up and resorted to the sloppiest, most “comfortable” forms of dress and attire.

My work with this blog and issues of clergy image are deeply connected to the visual arts as a means toward transcendence. I feel that many clergy are enamored of the literary arts (we are people of the Word) and desperately need to attune ourselves to the visual realm of beauty and help our people do the same. We are bombarded by so many manipulative images every day (images designed to get us to purchase or use particular products that are all essentially the same under their packaging), we have lost the appreciation for, and language about, art for art’s sake, and fear to be thought shallow if we speak on behalf of Beauty.

It articulates some of why I post experiences of beauty every week, which I explained way back when (over a year ago already!). We are embodied people with five different senses that enable us to engage with God, with each other, and with the created world in different ways than our linguistic/cognitive abilities allow.

The connection with manipulative imagery was particularly interesting. I think the church has alternative imagery to present (architecture, art, icons, and more) that speaks to invitation rather than manipulation, and abundance rather than scarcity of beauty. But do we pay enough attention to these great gifts?