To the Heights
on the purpose and path of Beauty
Friends, fasters, countrymen,
I hope your Lent is going well. Mine has been great, so far, and has involved many wonderful things over here at Creatio. My first trip of the season went great last week, and we’ve been sharing our mission with others quite a bit lately.
The writing that follows is a talk I recently gave at a college Newman center. The team and I drove down to Colorado Springs a couple weeks ago to serve dinner, hang out with the students, and tell them a bit about Creatio with the hope they will come on a trip with us sometime. The rest of the team made shepherds pie for everyone, and I gave the talk. The hope was to both give an intro to the Creatio Experience and spur them on to pursue it. I seem to be called on to do the latter (inspire pursuit of the Good) quite often lately, which is interesting. For someone who was quiet, monotone, and rarely (publicly) expressive in his youth, it’s funny to be asked to speak as some kind of apostle of passion. AMDG I suppose.
So, I thought this talk may be edifying to all of you as well, since I always intended to publish some of my missionary talks but rarely write them down. It is very much a product of my own spiritual life these days, so filled with longing for God as it is. I hope each of you find something helpful in it.
To the Heights
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, who announces peace, who shows forth the good, who announces salvation, who says to Zion “your God reigns.” - Isaiah 52:7
I was asked to come down here today to “give a talk” that would, in some way, give you all a taste of what it is Creatio does, and hopefully get you all excited to join us on the way. I do, of course, intend to do that. So in short, Creatio is an apostolate based in Denver that leads pilgrimage and backpacking trips around the US and Europe to guide all people to encounter the beauty of Creation and the Creator.
It’s a beautiful mission that I love very much, and one that I hope you’ll all join me in. However, despite having delivered the official company line, I am not here as a salesman, and that’s primarily because I can’t stay down in those practicals. I, in a real, visceral sense, long for “the ultimate,” the highest things, and that is exactly where the “path of Beauty,” that we at Creatio walk on, goes. In the words of our beloved patron, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, “verso l’alto!” — We are going to the heights!
So, pardon me then if I begin way down at a definition (some practicals are necessary). What is “Beauty?” Before I even think about why it matters, I must know what it is. The truest and most workable definition I have found is “an encounter with the Real that stirs the heart.” There are more philosophical definitions out there, but I don’t want to slow down for those winding and wandering paths tonight. This is a matter of the heart, this is a matter of our inward human response to the reality of God, of the created world, of our fellow men, of everything. This is a heroic matter, demanding not only your simple yes but your entire being as well. This is the reality of Beauty. It is the quality of the True, the quality of the Good, the quality of Reality that pierces you through the heart, sets you on fire, and spurs you on to greatness. In short, Beauty is the first step, as well as the nature of the entire journey “to the heights,” … to God, towards our ultimate communion, our divinization, our life with our Creator. This is what all beauty, from the eyes of your girlfriend or boyfriend to the peaks of the mountains right outside our door, is for. It’s meant to point you on the way. That’s why we lead these trips outside – that’s why anyone goes outside. Beauty was made to point to higher things. That’s what is meant by the ancient saying, “the world was made for the sake of the Church.”
There is something dangerous about Beauty though. There is a very real way in which Beauty causes us to suffer, and I have found, the more I am attuned to it, the more I see it everywhere I look, the more I suffer. I’ve wondered if that's part of why so many dismiss beauty today – because in piercing your heart it often truly does hurt you. Not in a physical way, but interiorly. You allow yourself to be affected by the Beautiful, and you will begin to know nostalgia and longing like you never have before. It can be excruciating. But, how else are you going to fix yourself, to truly set your gaze, on the heights?
It has become clear to me that without that mysterious suffering, we cannot truly work towards the heights, let alone begin our ascent. We simply aren’t enough, before our beautiful wounding. Our uglier, sinful wounds have chained us, tied us down, tied our hands and hearts in knots and left us unable to go more than a few paces on our own. This is why we must be pierced by the Beautiful – so that God in His mysterious ways can begin to break open our hearts and not just refine them, but utterly change them, and I only want that because I have seen the Beauty and Wonder of His works. As the Psalmist says, “I believe that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” The Beautiful, as it wounds us, sows in us what we might call a “readiness to change.” I have seen the heights of wonder and goodness, of all that is true, and I begin to long for it more than anything. And then, when I eventually realize I can’t get there on my own, the longing I feel gradually opens me up to however God wants me to get there, however he wants to change me for the journey. The Beautiful, as I encounter Him down here and fix my gaze on Him up there, descends to me and begins to raise me up, changing me into whoever I must be for both the journey and the destination. Interestingly, the heroism of this path is not an individualized heroism, self-made and asserted on reality, rather, it is entirely received from Another.
I want more though. Really I want it all. As Beauty stirs this longing in me and I begin to change as Christ does His work, I don’t just want another beautiful sunset or even another moment of love on Earth, I want everything. I want everything all those wonderful things only show me glimpses of. You’d think after a while of seeing so many amazing things – mountains, churches, valleys, grottos, and the endless waves of the sea – that it’d be enough, or I’d get tired of it. But no, the exact opposite. I want all of it so much more. And this is supposed to make you do crazy, ridiculous things. Walking hundreds of miles to a holy site on pilgrimage, when you could just drive and be there in a day, with no blisters, is ridiculous. Climbing a mountain with friends just for the glory of it is “pointless” in terms of material gain. But that’s not the point. I have been touched by Beauty and I want more. I have seen a refracted, shadowy image of the face of God and now it’s all I ever want. What I mean when I say I want everything is that I want God, so so badly, and that “communion,” that life with Him, reveals itself as the end of all true desire, sparked by all true Beauty. If you don’t know what I mean yet, because I don’t think I did in college, you’ll see it eventually — if you walk down this road.
This whole journey, this path, this arc, this descent and ascension is the way every human being must take. It’s the arc of the entire Christian life, and it's the arc of every Creatio experience as well. We begin with that encounter with the Beautiful – in the mountains here in Colorado, the hills and deserts of New Mexico, or the medieval streets of Spain - and we allow it to unfold in us however God would have it. You’re then called to, and begin to, change along the way, becoming the person the Father made you to be. And by the end, while I cannot and will not go so far as to promise Heaven, you will know a deeper communion than you ever have before – with God, with each other, with the Beauty of the Created world, and with yourself. It's the adventure of our entire lives. This is what you were made to do. And I’m inviting you to do that with Creatio. Whether for one day or a dozen, in order to enter into that adventure in a way you never have before. We are going to the heights, my friends. And are taking the path of Beauty to get there. Each and every one of you is called to this heroic response to the Beautiful, you are meant to have your heart set aflame with love and longing, and to follow that to the end.
Pray for me and my friends as we walk on this path of Beauty this year. We’ll be praying for you, and will be eagerly awaiting each and every one of you on the Via Pulchritudinis. God bless you, and thank you for having us.
in statu viae,
Ryan