We have the normal bodily response, which
is fight or flight, fear and anger. But another style of response emerges from
our souls. From that core piece of ourselves that doesn’t have any shape, size,
color or weight, but gives us infinite value and dignity. And this response is
an aesthetic response. It’s the one that causes us to hunger for beauty, to be
called by beauty to partake in beauty, to pay attention to compassionate
actions, to sacrifice for a neighbor, to keep a neighbor safe.
These actions and these acts of beauty,
like the Sermon on the Mount, like the Lincoln Second Inaugural often involve
flipping the script, upending values. On one level, these acts of beauty and
pure gift and loving care are radically illogical. They are vulnerability in the
face of danger. They are gentleness in the midst of bitterness. They are
compassion in the midst of strife, but these are the acts that have the power
to shock. These are the acts that have the power to open hearts. These are the
acts that have a power to shock a revolution in our culture and in our
consciousness.
We don’t get to choose our condition. We do
get to choose our response. And even in the bitterness of this hard time, I’ve
seen individual acts and collective acts of giving and change and facing hard
truths and uncomfortable conversations that are a little sparks of beauty in
what has all been rocky and dark.
We are grateful for the witness of courageous women and men throughout the history of our Church, our nation and our world.
The Beheading of John the Baptist, Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch, Leiden 1606–1669 Amsterdam, etching and drypoint. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Used with permission. Lines by David Brooks.
