Beauty Is NOT in the Eye of the Beholder

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" seems like a sweet idea.  It evokes images of people who aren't particularly physically attractive, but have hearts of gold.  It gives us the superior feeling of being more discerning than the average person, of not judging by "mere appearances." 

But it's really just poison with a sweet perfume.  To say with Hume that "beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them" is to say that there is nothing we call beauty which exists as an independent, objective quality or attribute of a thing. Which is another way of saying that God (being transcendent) is not beautiful, although some of us may have beautiful feelings about Him.

Beauty, like truth, is a transcendental thing.  And all Beauty, all Truth, all Goodness, and perfect Unity is found in God.  No reasonable person defends himself against the charge of bearing false witness with the argument that "truth is in the mind of the thinker."  No parent, telling his child to "be good" would consider that "Goodness is whatever the child thinks it is." So also with Beauty.  It's no good trying to discuss whether something is beautiful with statements such as, "I like it," or, "it moves me," or, "I think it's pretty."

To the extent that things conform to and reflect the Beauty of God, they are beautiful. Thus, the criteria for judging Beauty are found in God Himself. God is a God of order.  Therefore, disorderly things are not beautiful. God is not an abstraction; He is real. It could even be said that He is Reality.  So we have the principle that abstract "art" is not beautiful.  (Although, to be fair, the purpose of the artist in producing abstract art is not to make something  beautiful, although he is presumably trying to communicate something about another transcendental quality.) 

For another time:  Beauty & Architecture, Beauty & Liturgical Music

Divorce: It's All About ME!

In the US, divorce is not the unforgivable sin, it is the unrepented sin.  Somehow, people seem to feel that divorce is sanitized by getting an annulment, as if that makes everything squeaky clean and paves the way to marry Honey #2. It doesn't seem to enter people's minds that, having brought children into the world -- whether in a marriage or outside of one -- they are responsible for them, and that responsibility involves putting aside one's own feelings to meet the needs of the children.  Somehow, in their eagerness to assert their rights and proclaim their innocence, the children are trampled underfoot.  The children's world has just been turned upside down, and their parents blithely tell people that "everything is okay with the children; they are doing fine; both of us make a point to tell them we still love them."  It sure doesn't look like that from the perspective of the children.  They now have to be perpetual gypsies, moving back and forth from one house to the other.  (Two houses, two sets of rules, two worlds.  And they're expected to navigate easily between the two.) They've learned that no matter how much someone says he  is committed to his wife or children, no one will publicly question his decision to break up his family, let alone assert that he is selfish and despicable for not keeping his word.  (Of course, it goes without saying that the same goes for "her.") They've learned that they are a lower priority than their parents' agendas:  Mom and Dad are both wrapped up in their legal and canonical wranglings, finding Honey #2, and separating one household into two (who gets the West African death mask we bought in 1994?).

Every parent knows in his heart that divorce is bad for children. (Even psychologists are starting to recognize it.)  It used to be that parents wouldn't divorce "for the sake of the children."  They had a sense of responsibility to their children, and willingly sacrificed their own "fulfillment."  That whole thing about being thrown into the sea wearing a millstone necklace being a better option than stumbling a child was taken seriously.  These days the decision to divorce is often made independent of the consideration of its impact on the children.  (Of course, if physical abuse is involved, that is a proportionately grave reason for a divorce... but not necessarily for entering into another marriage.)

Who Should Be a Part of Whose Life?

I've been told many times (usually in a homily) that God needs to be part of my life.  It doesn't quite sound right.  Kinda like, "I have the active part of my life, the intellectual part of my life, the social part of my life, and the God part of my life."  I want what the saints had:  to be completely devoted to God.  And not just that.  To be in Christ. Not even just to belong to Him, but to be taken up into His Life.  To be part of His Life.  That's better:  We should strive to be part of God's Life, rather than to make Him part of ours.