Infinitum Advent Behold Beauty, Week 1Sample

“Beauty will save the world.”—Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What if beauty really could save the world?

For many of us, this past season has left us feeling a little cynical. Many of us are deconstructing and coming out of a time of great loss. The political season, the pandemic, and the rampant exposure of injustice and abuse in religious spaces have left us heartsick.

Many of us are questioning … can anything be beautiful?

Our world is wrought with trauma. According to Dr. Curt Thompson, MD, we tend to want to respond to trauma with left-brain ways of dealing with it: logic, reasoning, and control.

That’s so true. We try to defeat despair, evil, and injustice with our own control - fixing, managing, and problem-solving, and it just doesn’t work out so great.

Usually, the harder we try to grasp control, the more these issues control us.

But what if the soul-shrinking crisis in our world wasn’t a left-brained problem that required left-brained solutions like system changes or even a robust theology?

What if we responded to the problems of evil in the world by subverting it with unexpected beauty?

Do you want to know if beauty can save the world? Let’s take a look at how God chose to save it Himself. In the midst of the trauma that covered the world in darkness, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”

“Jesus didn’t take a pragmatic approach to the problem of evil; Jesus took an aesthetic approach to the problem of evil.”—Brian Zahnd in Beauty Will Save the World.

God flooded the darkness in the world with light through the person of Jesus. He transformed the world through unexpected beauty.

Because beauty is love made visible.

Have you ever had a moment of incredible anxiety or sadness that was suddenly transformed by the presence of beauty in your midst? Maybe you heard a song that spoke exactly the words you needed at that moment. Or someone made you laugh when you were really stressed out.

These are moments of divine love expressed to you—and they are transformative, aren’t they?

Think of an area in your life right now or in our world that feels overwhelming and provokes anxiety. Ask God, “What is an act of beauty I can create that will demonstrate Your love in this situation?”