Inhaling and exhaling beauty

BEAUTY IS OXYGEN: FINDING A FAITH THAT BREATHES

Wesley Vander Lugt
Eerdmans Publishing 2024.

It can be difficult to define beauty. In his new book, Wesley Vander Lugt understands beauty to be traces of divine glory in the natural world and in human culture. He aims to show readers why beauty’s impact is necessary to a vibrant faith and hope.

Vander Lugt, a teacher of theology and a director of the Leighton Ford Center for Theology, the Arts and Gospel Witness at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, has also been a pastor and is a theologian-in-residence in a church. His finely curated compendium of selected poems, Scripture passages, quotes, theology and philosophical queries is interspersed with his contemplative writings.

In eight chapters and 140 pages, he argues that we need to be dazzled by beauty, to breathe deeper and to commit to seeking, making and delighting in beauty as a way to a fuller life. Chapters include “A Suffocating Life,” “Boredom and the Ache for Beauty” and “The Beautiful Ordinary.” The concluding chapter asks: “What Sort of Beauty will Save the World?”

What about now?

Is it proper to seek beauty at a time of geopolitical chaos, environmental threat and economic anxieties? Does it matter? More so than ever, concludes the author. He believes we need beauty like we need oxygen. “It awakens us to see things as they currently are and allows glimpses of how things could be,” he writes.

According to Vander Lugt, we are at risk of suffocating our souls with busyness, confusion, self-centeredness and inattention. Haste, overconsumption and the distraction of digital use have made a buffer zone around our souls. We have amnesia about the transformative power of beauty. He worries, “We have sealed off the old portals.”

‘A radical decentring’

As Vander Lugt encourages us to seek beauty, he calls a true encounter with beauty “an unbuffering, a radical decentring, a Gasp!” He explains “unbuffering” as “a willing ceding of our ground.” Be lost, he advises, in a lover’s eyes, carried away by a piece of music, breathless at the colour of the morning sky, engrossed in a powerful story or entranced by a newborn baby.
Vander Lugt suggests that “our loss of the instinct for beauty can be traced back to Adam and Eve, who exchanged true beauty for a tasty bite of self-centered knowledge.”

Saved by beauty

In answer to the question he posed, “Can beauty save the world?” the author concludes, “Only God can save the world from ultimate tragedy. But to the extent that God is Beauty, then yes, the world will be saved by beauty which is the Beauty of the eternal Being who is simultaneously Beautifier, Beauty and Beautifulness.”

This highly readable, inspiring book lends itself to reflection. It encourages practices like stopping to gaze at the red onion you have just cut in half. Enjoyed a few pages at a time, it’s perfect for those final contemplative minutes of reading at day’s end.