Beauty and Corrective Lenses


The liberation theologian Dorothee Soelle uses an expression which I find helpful in observing and processing the inputs of this world: to use the eyes of God. 
As I consider the importance of Beauty and its embrace I realize we are indeed engaging in our relationship with the Divine when we gaze and pray with and into Beauty. As we do so more deeply and intentionally, it can seem as though we are refracting light differently, or squinting, or wiping our eyes. All of this is indicative of seeking corrective lenses for our vision. As the Hymn begins: Be Thou My Vision O Lord of My Heart. 
God’s eyes might become our corrective lenses. 
Soelle, a mystic, clarifies the role of mysticism as not being a solitary escapist enterprise but a cultivating one which seeks insights which in turn inform and motivate our actions. 
God’s eyes, our corrective contemplative lenses, see all things as they are as well as how they might ultimately be, unitive perfection. 
Beauty provides these holy glimpses as though by God and of God. Gazing into a beautiful stream of water might be as though gazing into another divine realm, with God’s eyes. The inspiration reflected becomes our courage to act.

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