The desire for beauty is embedded deep
into our being. There is an unsatisfying urge in humans to find the
beauty inside of us and outside of us. We desire things for more than their
function; we desire them because they are beautiful. We want beautiful things
to surround us at all times. We like things to be pleasing to our eyes, and
appealing to all our other senses. For this reason, we live in a culture of
art, defined by luxurious living spaces, adorned with décor, to make the space
we occupy more desirable. It is as though we want to submerge ourselves fully
into the sea of beauty in order to quench our thirst. However, despite
enveloping ourselves with beauty we are left unsatisfied. We desire more; C.S.
Lewis writes in the Weight of Glory, “We do not want merely to see
beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else
which can hardly be put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to
pass into it, to receive it into it, to receive into ourselves, to bathe in it,
to become part of it. (42-43).” Human desire is to be one with beauty, to not
just be spectator but to participate in it.Our desire for the beautiful may be
driven by our need to understand the significance of life. We only understand
the significance of something if we fully participate in it. Yet we cannot
participate in everything, so as spectators, we surround ourselves with
beautiful things to catch the glimpse of divine gain meaning from that
encounter to give significance to our irrelevant lives.
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