Beauty part deux

I just got back from visiting AMY DAYTON in Paris- so I had to share all the french I know- which is about "deux" which means two and I'm pretty sure that's all I know except for how to say "I don't speak French" which is Je ne parle pas frances (also probably not spelled right) but its prounounced Jeh Neh Pa"r"le Pa F"r"ancey. Or not. Whatever, French is ridiculous so back to my featured post.

Little Johnny Carlson asked me what I thought about my last post in relation to the beauty of Christ. [For all you other people: see what happens when you reply to my blogs?] So that's what I'm gonna write about in one moment.

*one moment*

I think that all good feelings and happy moments have something to do with our ability to experience God. That's what makes Earth different from Hell. Even people that don't know the Lord can still experience things that I (in my last post) called beautiful. I do believe all good things come from the Lord, who is the author of goodness and beauty. I think that creation is broken, it still bears the mark of its Creator. If it's more complicated than that I haven't figured it out yet.

I think I want to tie this in with evangelism. So here goes...

I think evangelism is most effective when we can point at things that people already think are beautiful and say THAT is from the Lord. The LORD made that. And that's why you feel what you feel and you can feel more of it if you just recognize that that's where it comes from. Not only will you feel more beauty, but the beauty you experience will become redeemed and perfect and pure and anything imperfect (STD's, withdrawal, depression...) that comes with something God made to be enjoyed (artistic expression, nature, sex, friends...) can be cast off of those experiences and you can experience God more fully. And that comes when we let God redeem us first and we get the Holy Spirit and then we see Beauty for who He really is. So let's all evangelize that way. In this postmodern society where people want to "feel" and "experience" stuff, it's important that we point to the source of feeling and beautiful experiences and tie it in with TRUTH. That's all I got. Not bad for a 20 minute post.

If you put an "l" in deux, you get delux.

Beauty

What is Beauty? I'm in this art history class "Art History of the Renaissance" and it's a question we haven't really asked. I mean, we talk about beauty all the time. We label things as beautiful and less beautiful than that more beautiful one, but what exactly is beauty?

I think it's interesting that you can't really teach someone what is beautiful, or what beauty really is, you just sort of have to show them. You have to show them one thing that is beautiful, and another thing that is beautiful and then you have to figure out what those two things have in common, and that equals beauty. And to add to the equation, beauty isn't just applicable to visual things. You can hear something and say "that sounds beautiful." I think beauty can also be applied to smells too. We might call them delicious or wonderful, but I think it's really that we've found something beautiful about it.

Why is it that some days I feel like I'm the most beautiful woman in the world and other days I feel like I am the literal antithesis of beauty?

You know what I think? I think beauty is an emotion.

I think that something is beautiful when it makes us feel something beautiful. I think when a smell makes us exhale faster just so we can breathe it in again, we feel beauty. I think that when you wish you didn't have to blink so that you could only behold something that much longer, we feel beauty. I think that when you press repeat on your ipod four times to celebrate what you are hearing once again, we feel beauty. I have trouble driving at night in the states when I'm home because I don't have two sets of eyes. It deeply frustrates me that I have to put my eyes back on the road when there are so many stars. That is beauty.

Have there ever been moments when you wanted to curse the fact that you had to eat or sleep or go to the bathroom because it paused or ended a beautiful moment? I think that's why heaven is so appealing.

Nothing will ever end that Beauty.

I can't come up with a good title.

These last two weeks have been among the busiest of my LIFE. I haven't gotten a free five minutes since I got to Spain. I am glad to be back though. This post isn't about anything in particular, I just feel like I should update you people (whoever you people are) on what's happining. I'm watching Mulan right now. Some day I'd like to go fight in a chinese army.

I'm going to Paris next weekend to visit my old small group leader from high school, Amy Dayton. I am STOKED. I'm hoping to take a lot of black and white pictures. I want to find a really good one of the Eiffle Tower and one of Notre Dame. And I want's some crepes. I'm really really excited. I'm feeling artsy.

So I went to Troy's Theater group on Monday. We read some lines out of 'night, Mother. It's a play about a girl who tells her mother she is going to commit suicide. It was really interesting but I didn't get to read the end. Lisa and this woman named Bea were there. They were both pretty good- but I felt kinda dumb; not because of anything anybody said or did, everyone was encouraging, but I'm really not that comfortable acting. It's weird. It doesn't come naturally to me at all. I thought I'd be good at it actually, because it's about pretending, and I always feel like I'm doing that in my head. But I also realized that to be good at it you sort of have to know how to evoke some emotion. I don't do emotion. I'm gonna go again next week hopefully with a friend or two that have the gift of emoting themselves... but I'm more interested in reading the plays than acting them out. Although, in Troy's defence, he's a good teacher and if anyone could teach me to act, I think it would be him.

Can I just say how much I like Madrid and Oasis and my life sometimes? I'm pretty stoked about it. I can't imagine never having given it over to God to run. I'd probably be working at IHOP.