On Echoes of Beauty - Jon Anderson

A big thank you to Jon Anderson for his four-week series on Echoes of Beauty, as a part of the ongoing discussion in the Gathering.

Here are some notes and reflections on Jon's series:

In seeking out aspects of life like friendship, money, respect, power, relationships, health, recognition, safety/security, justice, prosperity, acceptance, beauty, love, intimacy, meaning/purpose - these can both point us toward and prevent us from reaching that "Shalom" -the fulfillment of the kingdom of God.

Jon defines Beauty as 'that which produces pleasure in order and harmony' and identifies a framework for "engaging" Beauty in these ways:

1.) How do we "see" - and what do we pay attention to?
2.) What do we "do" - in outward orientation?
3.) What do we "make" -action/activity?
4.) What do we "think" - in contemplation of?

We interpret Beauty through a harmonic order - i.e. the Golden Section and through these frameworks of logic:

1. Logic of Affection -
How does Beauty affect/influence our hearts ? There is no neutrality, for there are always values, ideologies wrapped up in our ideas of Beauty. Where Beauty deeply changes us, it changes the framework of our response.
2. Logic of Interpretive Community -
Beauty involves relationship to Intelligence - Jacques Maritain. What (in)forms the framework? The Life of the Church is formed to be an interpretive community, which can be seen in ways both good and bad.
3. Logic of Incarnation -
Through Christ and the Church, Beauty contains our Theology in story, narrative, images, flesh, relationship.
4. Logic of Liturgy -
We always participate in a kind of liturgy via work, interaction, day-to-day life - what values shape this liturgy, as the divine and mundane are always interconnected, intersecting? In the affirmation of physical space/presence, we live out the liturgy of Beauty.

Beauty, via the sacred and mundane, finds its completeness in Shalom. In the process of practicing Benevolence, the fulfillment is to seek redemption in order and harmony, within the heart of each person, while always holding in tension the disjointed and broken, alongside the good and beautiful. All we see must shape our understanding of the world - the goodness revealed within the Original Creation.

We were always made to pursue the pleasure of the Shalom of God, in identifying and incarnating what is important to God - therefore embodied belief must include a Theology of the Beautiful.

Our work and our call then is to recognize/realign the shape and practice of Beauty, to point back to Shalom.

How can we as individuals and collectively, within the Gathering, recognize this call in our day-to-day experiences, within our community, and throughout the world?

We would love to continue this discussion on Beauty, and invite you to post your questions or comments here.

posted by Christina @ 5:08 PM