Redefining Beauty

 

I called my cat Woo because he was white, I am not good with names. So forgive me for my title...

Redefining Beauty

As an artist that hates to be called that, I find my inspiration in beauty. In beauty and love, but the love I write about can be labeled as a beautiful kind of love. Or at least that is what kind of love I hope I describe in my writing.  But this will not be similar to what I have written in the past. You see, as I wrote about my life, and photographed the moments that I experienced I did not know that I was losing my idea of what I described as beauty. Not until it was gone did I realize I had of course been chasing something I already had, like a dog chasing their tail. How stupid was I to run in circles hoping to catch the figment of perfect beauty that was already around me. So with these words I hope to describe my experience so that: 

One, you learn 

and 

Two, I learn.

Part One: 

What it used to be, was a lie.

That is probably a strong sentiment, although it is true it may be too strong of a phrase. The more words you use the better others can understand your meaning. If I simply say, “A lie.” The only thing you can take from that is it was untrue, which is simply not true. So here is what I truly mean. 

Beauty in my mind just 8 years ago was entirely based on my agreement of what others said was beautiful. If I looked at a painting, and thought it was beautiful my idea of it being beautiful would have to be reassured by others preemptively saying it is beautiful. Only then would I state what I had already felt before they came up and said it. In this sense, if I think something is beautiful, and others speak their minds about how, ‘It is too round.’ ‘The colors are off.’ ‘It’s okay.’ ‘Well yeah but it isn’t as good as the others.’ My idea would be lessened and I would feel as though I was wrong, as if beauty could be wrong.

When someone would choose based entirely on their own preferences it would affect my idea of beauty. How stupid I was, as though everyones idea of beauty was exactly the same. 

It was with this that I stole my idea of beauty from others, and what is worse. 

I called it my own. 

People could tell, when they examined my patchwork of beauty, hand sown with imperfect hands. I do not know my own beauty just like I don’t know how to sow. This is beautiful because he said it was and I agreed with it, I sowed it in. The moment is beautiful because she laughed and said she loved it, I sowed it in. Sunsets were beautiful because others deemed they were, views were beautiful because people came from all over the world to view it. Adding it all to my patchworked idea of beauty. 

Now, you may be thinking what is wrong with that? Sharing beauty with others is one of the greatest things you can do. You are in the moment and it is beautiful for all, not just you.

The important fact that should be known here is, I used my own blank blanket as the main canvas, with each new patch I covered my idea of beauty. Instead of adding it to the edges making the blanket bigger, making my idea grow. I believed their spoken opinion weighed more than my sequestered thought. I am speaking only of beauty and my idea of beauty. Just as they added to my patchwork, they also altered it, you see. When they would speak unfavorably towards a sunset that I loved, I sowed it out.

Part Two:

This is mine.

Look at what I made, you have to like it because I made sure it had all the colors and abstract pieces of art that you said you loved. The words in this sentence are supposed to remind you of the one moment that you said you would remember forever. See this photograph? Does it not share the same emotion and feeling as the ones you previously liked? Do you not see what I have done? I have blanketed my beauty with the world's definition of it, but this beauty is different from all the others because this one is mine. Although they offer you the same emotions and the same colors, and the same 99 cent beauty that you can buy at the discount store. I hope you realize that somehow mine is different, does mine not stand out above the rest? 

And I had found what I searched for in exchange for the loss of what beauty truly was. That isn’t to say that what the world says is beautiful isn’t beautiful. It’s simply to say it’s beauty doesn’t last, have you not noticed how you need to keep up with the times? As though beauty is a beautiful wild stallion that you must catch and tame? Ride briefly on your high horse, take in the pride that comes with it for the horse will become wild again. And you will find the need to catch and tame it over and over again. The beauty the world had to offer I took and held, I had it, it was mine. No one could take it from me, and nobody tried. It was then that my creativity began to wilter, it was a rose planted on shallow soil.

My art suffered because of it, because whose beauty was I writing about? Whose beauty was I photographing? It wasn’t mine. Now don’t get me wrong I loved writing, and I love the photographs I took but which beauty was I sharing? I understand that each of us take something differently when we look at art. But if I the artist began with an impure view of what beauty is then what am I sharing? What love, what wonder am I describing with my words, and with my photographs? 

I crashed, there is of course a better way to describe it but that is what happened. If we must keep with the wild stallion analogy, I fell off the horse and didn’t want to get back on, I was tired. Surrounded by beauty I wrote 100 thousand words, and took 1,000 photos. The 100 thousand words now collect cyber dust on it’s digital bookshelf and the 1,000 photos are stuffed into a box in the back of the hard drive’s closet. It didn’t feel genuine, it didn’t feel like it adamantly portrayed the emotion and beauty that I had begun to feel and see. Something was missing, something was out of place...

Part Three:

I am a blind man.

So I closed my eyes, and covered my ears to all that people told me was beautiful. And I placed myself where beauty would not find me by accident, where beauty would not grow. For months I lost myself in this place, the cussing and pride filled my ears. The monotony and scuffed up walls were all I saw, I drowned myself there until with a deep breath I asked God, why?

Why are we missing the idea of Your beauty?

How have we been misguided away from Your wonder?

Where have Your marvels gone?

It says you are indescribable, but what is surrounding me is very much so. And I have seen the beauty the world has to offer and described it with 100 thousand words and 1,000 photographs. 

And he did not answer me with words, instead the cussing increased and the cracks on the broken tiles lengthened. The room smelt of sweat and food that had spoiled months ago. Trash was left on the floor and the toilets flooded covering the bathroom with excrement. For one who had lived so long on the beauty on this earth, thrusting myself into this side of the world slowly crushed me until I cried. In my tears I again asked God all the questions racing through my mind about beauty. Only at my lowest did He answer by opening my eyes and uncovering my ears so I could see clearly. And I found that he had been answering me all along, silent and still. I was just too loud, complaining and blind to it.

How is one described as beautiful and the other we turn away from in disgust is not God the King of the world. Did He not make both the snow covered mountains and the windowless room that smells of human waste? Or is there another creator in this world that God has allowed to make the most vile places on this earth? Now you may say, there is the devil, but I fail to see how even he can make something beyond God. I fail to see how even he can extend himself farther than God can, there isn’t a safe haven from God where the devil can dwell. Where he can rest with ease away from the watchful eye and arm of God. Nothing is made without God, nothing is breathed into existence without God. Nothing can fall or rise, nothing can grow or whither, no waves crash on the shore and no clouds bring rain and thunder without God.

And in the silence of the night as the full moon breaks through the rain clouds far off above the mountains I can conclude. Beauty is not seen, nor is it heard, it is felt. And as God is within me, and He has created the heavens and earth how can everything not be beautiful.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 

18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 

19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 

21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Fin