Category Archives: beauty

From Uncreated Light to electrics.

beauty, church, icons, quotes, theology, , , ,

For it is the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
-II Corinthians 4:6

My priest mentioned in a homily recently that the verse above was his favorite; of course that made me pay close attention to it. Soon afterward I read an article by the iconographer Aidan Hart, “Lighting in Orthodox Churches: Liturgical Principles and Practical Ideas,” which has kept me thinking on this Light … and I’m certain I could benefit from further meditation on Hart’s ideas — because they flow from the truth that Christ Himself stated, that He is The Light of the World.

How do we reflect this reality symbolically when choosing physical lighting for our churches? And how might lighting help us to worship or distract us? If any of these questions is interesting to you, you might like to read the whole article, which I have linked above and below. Or skip the text and look only at the more than two dozen photographs of most beautiful churches and monasteries — and one mosque — illustrating the principles that Hart discusses. I especially loved the photo showing alabaster windows such as this one:

Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna

Hart reminds us that “The Church is ultimately a community of persons and not a building.” It follows that “Its light should illuminate the personal rather than the abstract.” He compares the needs of monasteries to those of parish churches, and The Blue Mosque to Hagia Sophia. The pros and cons of natural light, candles, oil lamps and electric lights are discussed; he explains how an environment with quiet light can help us to “learn the art of stillness, watchfulness, interiority.”

I’ll close with one paragraph that is rich with theological principles worth musing on, and leave you to click on the link for the whole article:

The second century neo-Platonist Plotinus wrote that “beauty is symmetry irradiated by life”. This was interpreted by the Byzantines as symmetry irradiated by light, for light was regarded an image of divine, animating and transfiguring life. But this Byzantine aesthetic of moving rather than static light was ultimately rooted in Trinitarian theology. The uncreated light of divine love is One, but it is also dynamic, moving within the Trinity and moving down to creation. Of course the term moving is a human concept and is ultimately inapplicable to God, who has no need to move from place to place. But the term is applicable inasmuch as it reminds us that God is not a single monad, that God is love because He is Three. Christian beauty is therefore rooted in relationship rather than an abstract and static ideal. And this can be reflected in church lighting.

-Aidan Hart, “Lighting in Orthodox Churches: Liturgical Principles and Practical Ideas”

St Demetrios Church, Thessaloniki (not taken by me)

This walk required two pair of boots.

beauty, nature, wildflowers, , , , , , , , , ,
mallow

This evening I made it out for a walk, which turned into two walks, because of something new I saw on my usual route. I stopped at the bridge to look down at the seasonal creek that is getting low… and up at all the bushes and trees growing out of it. Every few years the city maintenance crew dredges out these waterways, but right now everything is growing lush and thick.

The willows are the tallest plant that grows down there, and buckeyes are numerous. What was that I saw climbing up in the tallest willow bushes? White flowers… if I only had a better camera, or even binoculars… I pointed my Seek app at the flowers and it said Lady Banks’ Rose. Even as poorly as I could make them out, that didn’t seem right.

The roses were growing in the area in the middle of the creek bed, between two creeks right where they join to become one. I thought I would try to go down closer to the water where there is a jumble of unpaved dry-season paths that some people run on with their dogs, and a few children explore. Also there is a sloping cement driveway of sorts for the maintenance vehicles, that is submerged in the winter. Two paved creekside paths also meet at the bridge. But when I got to the place where I would cross the southern stream to get to that middle area, the rocks were covered with algae, and it all seemed too muddy and messy for me to attempt while wearing my new boots.

So I came home and looked up Lady Banks Roses. They did not at all resemble what I’d seen; I guess they were too distant for Seek to make out. The bright idea occurred to me: Why not change into my old boots that I was thinking of giving away, and go back? Why not, indeed?

lemon balm

When I arrived at the crossing place again I had to squish through the mud and the algae, but with only a few steps I was over, and my old boots were mostly waterproofed and barely noticed.

watercress

My, what a lot of plants in that mid-creek jungle! Once before I walked down there, but it was in September when everything starts drying up. The roses today were growing in the middle of the willows, honeysuckle, horsetail grass, fennel and bedstraw.

Watercress, Greater Plantain, and Bermuda Grass

Many of the plants are naturalized from backyard escapees. The Bermuda grass for sure, and the lemon balm, and the roses. Wild blackberry brambles snagged my clothes and grabbed at my hair, but I managed to feel my way with my feet along the edge of the creek that was hidden by bullrushes, right up close to the flowers I wanted to see better.

When Seek could assess the image better it identified it as Rosa multiflora or Rosa polyantha, a native of eastern Asia. It also told me I’d observed it two years ago near my daughter Pippin’s place in the farther north part of the state. These roses were to me the prettiest thing in all that jungle.

It really made my day to make this little excursion and discover who they were, and to meet as well many of their companions in the creek. I think I’ll hold on to my old boots.

What is it I almost remember?

beauty, poetry, quotes, , , , , , ,

What Dorothy Parker describes in her poem below reminds me of what C.S. Lewis called sehnsucht, the heart’s longing, seemingly for its home – in God. These episodes often happen at moments when we experience something very good or beautiful, and realize deep in ourselves that it doesn’t quite satisfy, but only reveals our homesickness.

In The Weight of Glory Lewis describes this aching in our heart:

 “In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence….

“We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. 

“…These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.”

Peder Monsted

TEMPS PERDU

I never may turn the loop of a road
Where sudden, ahead, the sea is lying,
But my heart drags down with an ancient load–
My heart, that a second before was flying.

I never behold the quivering rain–
And sweeter the rain than a lover to me–
But my heart is wild in my breast with pain;
My heart, that was tapping contentedly.

There’s never a rose spreads new at my door
Nor a strange bird crosses the moon at night
But I know I have known its beauty before,
And a terrible sorrow along with the sight.

The look of a laurel tree birthed for May
Or a sycamore bared for a new November
Is as old and as sad as my furtherest day–
What is it, what is it, I almost remember?

-Dorothy Parker

the poet

I shift my attention to wisteria leaves.

beauty, my garden, , , ,

Most of the day I’ve been in a melancholy mood, except for the hour or so I was outside helping Alejandro pull the remaining leaves off the plum trees. We did this in preparation for applying the first dormant spray of the season, and I do love being in the garden, just soaking up the fresh smells and dampness. In the middle of the day, that is, when the chill doesn’t go straight to the bones.

I spent hours and hours out there this week, planting bulbs and annuals too late, and getting a little weary of the cold sogginess. But every time I would look up from the ground, there was the sky, and the varied colors of leaves drifting down from my crape myrtle, or the neighbor’s liquidamber. The whole thing overwhelms me with the beauty and sadness of the earth.

And today, it was the wisteria in my own garden that lifted my head and heart — it is a richer, deeper, brighter yellow-gold than I’ve ever noticed before. Truly, if cameras had never been invented, I would have had to learn to paint long ago.

Happy December, my Dear Readers all!