The Beauty of His Presence
Most would sum up the issue of aesthetics–that branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty, taste and style with the age-old response, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Jeremiah Schultz, writing from a Christian perspective, says that everyone has a way of seeing from their own perspective.
There was a time when the church led the world in defining what makes something truly beautiful and edifying. T.S. Eliot, a Christian poet, regarded edification not as something that is taught or preached but something that connects humanity with humanity. In his blog entitled Church Aesthetics Jeremiah Schulz writes that beauty transcends the subjective and finds its source in God who is the author of beauty. And God invites man to explore and delight in the beauty of the world He has created and in turn, to create what edifies humanity with humanity through an intrinsic design that reflects the Triune God.
Much of this role in which aesthetics reflects the mysteries of God has been replaced by the media. Marshall McLuhan was a media theorist, In 1964 he coined the phrase “the medium is the message in his book, Understanding the Media: The Extensions of Man. Mankind was not determining the message, technology shapes the message and we end up with a content less message. A light bulb has no content, yet it can create day out of night. A tiny wire called a filament sits inside the glass. Electricity rushes through a wire very fast. The wire gets hot and shines like a sun and lumens measure the brightness. This is technology speaking. A text message functions in much the same way and makes it different from a written letter. Television brings fast-moving images and sounds into our lives and vanishes in the same manner.
Martin Luther was concerned about that when he set out to reform the church. He paid special attention to the ideas being communicated through words, music and art. Luther was hesitant to translate the Mass from Latin to German, because traditional Gregorian chants and polyphonic music were meticulously crafted to fit Latin syllables and accents.
Luther knew that rhythm and the text of Latin melodies and speech rhythms were intrinsically different than the German vernacular. It would disrupt the emotional and spiritual gravity of the mass. This would impact the experience of worship, Luther feared that poor adaptation would hinder faith rather than shape it.
Jeremiah Schulz quotes Junius Johnson in his book, The Father of Light for that same reason. “The experience of the beautiful and holy is a moment in which we are reminded of God.” Rather than functioning as medium, God permeates our entire existence. Therefore, the objective content supersedes the styles of worship.
In our 21st century church “how we interact and edify each other in our rationalistic and materialistic society will be the window into which we see together the wonders and glories of God. This proves to be a challenge when the movement is away from beautiful liturgies, hymns and paintings, as defined by God who is the intrinsic content. It strips the believer of the experience of peering behind the veil and becoming grabbed in the very gut by what is happening in them that is not subjective.
This loss happens when mystery in worship fails to take us to places beyond this world; stripping us of that which engages the whole person; mind, body, soul and spirit. Because human beings are creatures of God, they need to be edified, illumined and nurtured by the beauty, rhythm, and mystery that are in the likeness of God. Human beings are deeply nourished when they can experience the beauty, rhythm, and mystery that quickens souls.
Permit me to use my childhood as an example of this. As a child of age four, my parents had to take me with them on Wednesday evenings when they practiced with the choir. If they left me to be alone with my older brothers they could be rather cruel. I would sit at the back of the church as my father practiced in the choir and my mother played the organ. I didn’t know how hymns were written but when they practiced music by Felix Mendelssohn, Jean Sibelius and Johann Sebastian Bach, the music affected me and I would sit there sometimes and cry, not knowing why.
This was happening about the same time when I would lay by mother’s old upright piano and hit a key and listen to the vibration in a string long after I bonged the key.
Years later, I was privileged to hear Charles Gounod’s O Divine Redeemer sung by a woman. The combination of the magnificent voice and the lyrics spoke of a beauty unsurpassable. As the poet T.S. Eliot said “edification is not something that is taught or preached but is caught and resonates with the soul of humanity on a spiritual level.” T. S. Eliot viewed the spirit not as a vague emotional feeling. Rather, it happens when the human soul finds reconciliation with the glory, and majesty of God in the fluctuations of time.
