God's Appreciation of the Aesthetic

I suppose I first thought of this subject when we lived in Belize and realized that there were so many beautiful flowers out there in the hills and mountains that nobody would ever see. It seemed God made this beautiful hidden beauty simply for himself to enjoy. It didn't matter that no one else was aware of the flowers. I was so impressed with this beauty that I began to video some of these flowers and greatly magnified them on the screen.

There are many other amazing matters reflecting an interest that God had in his creation that has little
relevance to mankind or the rest of creation. Take color, for instance. There are very few practical values of hues- well perhaps for bees to find sources of sweets, but are not many animals color blind? Color is for beauty, which people enjoy just like God who created it for himself and us.

Or take tastes. Why should anything be sweet, or salty, or sour, or like any taste? People would eat out of hunger even if there were no tastes. Like color, taste has very little practical value except to give pleasantness to eating beyond the need to eat and feel better. Taste makes eating pleasant as a bonus to eating. There are various things we eat for the pleasure of eating, not for their necessary or value to our bodies. We eat butter on bread for taste, not nutrition. Likewise as suggested, sugar has no essential function to the body that can't be met just as well other ways. The whole soft drink business flourishes not for its practical value to the body- but for the pleasure of drinking pleasant tastes. Foods are flavored for aesthetic reasons, not for practicality and nutrition, usually. There are aesthetic bonuses to eating beyond necessity.

Or why should sex be pleasurable? The procreative act could simply be a matter of choice and practicality like eating when we want to have children,. But there is a bonus of ecstasy far beyond the “Task” of creating a new life. You might imagine the sheer joy God had in creating man in his image, a joy of creating human life "in his image". This elation he passed on to mankind, as we create new life generation after generation.

You can also consider the sheer exultation of flinging out the planets and galaxies and the most distant stars as celestial bodies so vast and distant that the earth would have been no more than a mud puddle in comparison. At the other extreme in size, the hobby of creating the smallest units of matter, far sub atomic where electrons gleefully dance around protons with the speed of light. That is still intriguing scientists to discover. Stuff could simply have been made simple stuff. God didn't stop at just doing it the easy way. No, he tinkered with sub-matter, and no doubt enjoyed doing it with greater enthusiasm then any inventor of things in the modern world. We take pride and joy in our creations, trivial as they may be in comparison to the complexity of matter. Whether they are material like a computer or “i-machines”, or intellectual as in writings, or artistic as in paintings or architecture. It seems we have the compulsive joy of creating just like our Creator, how be it in a miniature pattern, perhaps a bit like a child playing in the sand on a beach by an ocean.

What is our greatest aesthetic investment? What is God's greatest project? Did he just set everything up for the fun of making it and admiring it; just standing back watching his universal machine work? I can't believe God would then only stand at a distance in amusement, when there is so much to communicate with his most intelligent creature- which we assume we are! And does he only try to communicate with us? How about all higher mammals who have some intelligence? But the even insects seem to have some intelligence- bees can communicate to each other and dogs howl, and endlessly other creatures are able to communicate. Why would not God want to have a relationship with all creation? I don't know what molecules would say to each other or to him. Who knows?

Several days ago I was watching over our grandson, Baby Noah, now 8 months old. He crawled through the grass, back to me, over me, stabilizing himself by holding on to me. He toyed with everything his hands touched and then went on to other matters. It seems he was trying to learn all about his world and his place in it. He didn't use any words to communicate with me. Yet we did communicate to each other. How I wished he could talk to me! He seemed to know me, that I cared about him, that he was safe with me. So I believe God's greatest aesthetic interest is in continuing with his creation, ever waiting for all creation to respond to him. He tries again and again in all ways imaginable, to tell us that he is there for us. He longs for us to communicate with him on the level of our maturity. Sometime Baby Noah will speak to me. He know me- somewhat. But it is his development that is in process. He was created to relate. He will in his time. We suppose much of material is inanimate. Maybe not. God's greatest goal is that all creation would recognize him and respond. At least we know that we who call our selves mankind can respond. That, I believe is God's greatest aesthetic goal and appreciation.

                                                 I DO MISS HER

It is so different when she is gone. There is no one to talk to around here unless a neighbor comes around. What thoughts I have must be kept to myself. Or what joys I have I can’t share. Like glancing out the front door window and I see a rabbit hunched up in the wet grass and he just sits there for period of time. I must wait until she returns, or like when a neighbor brings me pizza and offers to bring soft drink as well. I have to eat it alone. It is different being alone.

I like reading and listening to old music and videos. But when I find an amazing video of the newborn grandson, just 12 hours old; and the beaming mother who is so full of love, joy, and total peace so soon after child birth, I must wait until she come home to share it. When I want to share it with this mother after twenty some years, she also is not there. I must retreat to the lonely house and go about my business.

My first real bout with alone-ness was the first morning after a very restless night being awake a lot with muscular aches and pains like flu or malaria. I am alone to bare my misery. When I get up, I feel just the same with tiredness as well and feel like retreating to the bed where I had no comfort before. How I wish I had someone with whom to share my misery and get some comfort! It is not too bad to sleep alone, while I am sleeping- but to wake up alone when I am miserable, that is something else. I struggled through the day and was releaved by the afternoon. But I was still alone. I called her on the phone and got a little pity, but it was nothing like her presence when I was miserable.

Then there are the little inconveniences, like deciding what to cook and then to eat it alone. The dishes still just sit there this third morning. With that cut on my thumb, I would have a good excuse to have her do them if she was here. Actually I wouldn’t even have to have any excuse- she would just do them. But can I wait to have them done till she returns? What a welcome that would be to her! And a confession of my ineptness of living alone. I also then think of what it would be like if I was always alone. I think of persons I know well who have been alone for years. I just can’t imagine being happy that way. Would I get used to it? I doubt it. True, “it is not good for the man to be alone”.

Loretta in Ohio for several days, August, 2009

Rebloged as she is at a Women's Retreat, October, 2016