Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism, New York, New American Library, 1974,450-451
"According to the measure of their strength and their passion, these, the true lovers of the Absolute, have conformed here and now to the utmost test of divine sonship, the final demands of life. They have not shrunk from the sufferings of the cross. They have faced the darkness of the tomb. Beauty and agony alike have called them: alike have awakened a heroic response. For them the winter is over: the time of the singing of birds is come. From the deeps of the dew garden, Life –new, unquenchable, and ever lovely –comes to meet them with the dawn.” Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism, New York, New American Library, 1974,450-451 Beauty is interesting because it can have some of the same effects that pain brings in one's life. Generally Beauty and pain are seen as producing opposite responses, one more positive and the other negative. In Underhill's book, Mysticism, she uses the example of the painful life as one that might lead them to look out of desperate need for help outside of themselves, the bottom of the barrel view. On the other side of the coin, we might find the same response from someone caught up with the beauty of something they encounter in this world. The thought is that beauty can produce desire for something outside of ourselves, the beauty of one we love, the beauty of music played together in an orchestra or the beauty of nature. In all of the following examples, we can begin to gain a sense of how beauty can captivate us and also help us to understand that we always desire more. Isn't this the same response that one might have with the problem of pain? Desiring more? Underhill's ultimate conclusion is that beauty and pain can draw a person to God. Beauty is somewhat mysterious, but I suppose we need to slow down enough to not only see it, but enjoy it. I certainly don't want beauty to elude me...
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