Friday, January 05, 2007

Love for beauty

It is in us, isn't it? We have it, everyone of us. From the very first breath, we long for beautiful faces, beautiful colors, beautiful things. Small babies turn away from ugliness and are drawn to beauty, almost instinctively and all the time.

The same applies to sounds - we seek cover from sharp and unpleasant ones, but we want to listen to pleasant voices, to the gentle waves beating against the beach, to rhythmical music, to harmonious songs and instrumental creations of the most cherished composers. There is magic in good music, there is magic in beauty. As long as we follow the God-given taste for it, we find peace, tranquility, we become soothed, calmed, renewed.

But look what happens when we forget this original feeling of godliness in art... When we want to be smarter, better and more inventive... then the notion of beauty becomes distorted, spoiled, it turns into ugliness that what humans deliberately call beautiful. Whom are they kidding? Is metal rock with songs about devil beautiful?
(This video is hideous, yet this song won last year's Eurovision Song Contest. Go figure...)
Is the art presenting our deepest dark thoughts something you would like to hang on the wall of your living room?

Yet it sells... Why? Are people so depraved and so hungry for excitement that whatever gives them a harder kick is better than original beauty? Is sin so deep rooted in us? Probably - yes. The Bible teaches it, too:
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
(Rom 3:23)
How can anything good dwell in them, no wonder they love darkness:
For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God
(2Ti 3:2-4)
I want music to be beautiful again, all music, and I want to see beauty when I visit an art gallery.

Lord Jesus, come quickly and let us see Your Beauty.

4 comments:

Even So... said...

Amazing, this will be the second time today (in less than an hour, actually) that I have recommended listening to the scherzo movement of Beethoven's 9th...ahhh, yes, that's the cure for common cold of crass culture....

Anonymous said...

What about the 5-Th? And second movement?

Even So... said...

Of course, after being drawn in, you begin to see the beuaty of all of it...kind of like..........

Brian said...

I admit I am a huge fan of good rock music. Not the stuff you would hear at an awards show. I have nothing against Bach or any other classical composer. But I feel that people that are not fans of Rock/Metal/Alt. music see only the Pat Robertsons of the genres.

Power has a beauty. The babbling brook has a beauty, but so does Niagara Falls.

In that spirit, let me make a couple of suggestions as to some of the talent you'll never hear otherwise. And remember the louder the better, it has to do with the way it is mixed down. All found on iTunes.

Secular example:
Rise River Rise by
Corrosion of Conformity
(take note of the twenty tracks of guitars)

Christian:
Zzyzx/Scarecrow by
Stavesacre
(contact me on this one)

I guess I'm just saying, don't write off the whole genre, yet.