Complexity seems to find its fullness in beauty. So I’m not sure I connect as much with the subtle message that complexity is bad and beauty is good. Some people speak of God as a God of order rather than chaos, yet it seems that God is a God of chaos and order. In Genesis one we what is that chaos that God brings order out of if not Godself? Could chaos not reflect the self-emptying of God in love? It is hard to fathom love as orderly.
Without complexity the beauty of Christ’s face is never seen. In a similar way, loneliness is a vital an intricate element of community, just as rests are a vital part of music, or good is meaningless without evil. It’s when we draw these seemly contrary elements into to relationship and live into them in fullness that the tension of the thesis & anti-thesis finds synthesis in Christ.
Without sin we would never know Christ. Praise God for sin, and for the relational process of which sin always inaugurates.
What we understand as beauty may be reflections of the process. So when a life, a sermon, a piece of art, some music, etc. reflects a connection of an individual/communal journey from chaos to fullness we call that connection “beauty.” We must always remember that today’s beauty may end up being tomorrows ugly, and today’s ugly will often become tomorrow’s beauty.
Peace, dwight
