Beguiled by Beauty

“If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright” (Luke 11:36, RSV). In this saying Jesus invites us to remember who we are: we are light and are witnesses to the light. We are partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:3, 4).

Contemplation is distinctive because it shows us that we are not only in a subject-object relationship with God—parent to child, king to servant—but we are also in the process of reuniting our being with the divine reality. We are light. The “flowing light of the God-head” circulates from Love to each of us and through us to one another.15 As Jesus

We are creatures of spirit and made for the Beloved, for the ultimate mystery that has no name. As creatures of spirit, our longing for the sacred is not only a private relationship with the holy other. It is a call to honor the sacred worth of every creature.

Through images like these we are reminded that we are of a noble lineage and we are called to great things. We are beloved of the Beloved. Poor, troubled children of Eve, we have become confused and lost our way. If there is such a thing as sin, it is not the stain of guilt we cannot wash out but forgetfulness that we are held with tender mercy by

Desire is our trustworthy magic lamp that never goes out. When we are led in a direction that does not serve us, desire stands back up, dusts itself off, and tries again. Desire desires our deepest good and will not give up through all of our crazy wandering.

These practices are not an escape from turmoil but disciplines that open our hearts wider to the world’s tragedy and beauty, however difficult times become.

The source of life is deeply, unimaginably Good—but life is a hot mess.

Through the doorway of beauty, we walk into the divine realm and begin to perceive creation—to speak poetically—more the way the Beloved perceives it.

We human beings are caught on the fangs of affliction, addicted to things that cannot satisfy us and lost in a thicket so we cannot find our real home.