#transcendentals

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

genuinely I think one of the most pressing calls for Christians (namely Protestant Christians) today is to stop underestimating the power of beauty

visual beauty, beauty in word, beauty in sound, beauty in story

we have ceded beauty for the past 70 years to the atheistic world and people of all beliefs are realizing that world has failed to carry that standard. people are realizing their daily lives are starved of beauty--especially natural beauty--so they are turning to the entities which recognize its power. entities like paganism, witchcraft, ancestor worship, the New Age. if they are drawn to Christianity (not necessarily believing it), they are more likely to attend a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox mass.

humans need beauty because humans need God, and beauty belongs to God. which means the church should be the standard-bearer of beauty in this world.

if a church can afford it, they should prioritize building a beautiful church, even if that means it will be smaller or less trendy.

if a church has skilled musicians in their midst, they should prioritize using those musicians in worship, even if it means the style of the music changes.

the church should always prioritize hymns and spiritual songs which exemplify goodness, truth, and beauty in their composition and lyrics, even if it means newcomers don't understand every line yet.

all these forms of beauty should reflect the beauty of the story of the Gospel.

[tonreihe]

If beauty is forgotten, so also will the other transcendentals be forgotten. (Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics. Volume 1, Seeing the Form)

[iwrite-thereforeiam]

article 2 is goooo

i flipping love the transcendentals, they make so much sense. the essence of humanity. any thoughts (from anyone, but particularly interested from atheists maybe?)

[justjudethoughts]

It has always been immensely important to me that people who have died are remembered, and I've never quite puzzled out why, but I figure that if anyone else can relate, they will be on this website.

My grandmother died years before I was born, and I spent my whole childhood asking for stories about her and imagining what life would be like if she were still here. Her absence in my life was palpable—there was someone I was missing. My eldest brother was stillborn, and my experience with him was much the same. An awareness that someone wasn't there, and the deep longing to know them the only way I could—by remembering.

But it's not just a "my family" thing. A good friend of mine's uncle died when he was in college. I love hearing about him and sometimes I feel almost related to him. Another friend of mine recently lost her cousin, and I take his memorial shirt with me every time I travel, so I can tell her how many places "he has been to."

After watching the Pianist, the first thing I did was look up Władysław Szpilman's siblings, who I knew died during the Holocaust. I wanted to know who they were, find out anything I could about them.

Louisa May Alcott wrote Jack and Jill after a 17 year old boy named Ellsworth Devens died. The story is dedicated to his school mates, and was written as a way to memorialize him. Every time I think about it, I get emotional.

I love cemeteries. I want to know who all the people buried there were. I want to know their stories.

Reading ancient literature makes my chest hurt because they lived and they laughed and they loved and they were just like me and we are so, so, so, so many centuries apart but they were human. And they mattered.

And that's really what it is, at the end of the day. No matter how long someone was here, for one second or for 100 years, their presence mattered. Their soul meant something, and it still does. They matter on the scale of all eternity. Nobody is insignificant. Not you, not me, not the people who perished in the fires of Pompeii. We all matter and we all mean something and wow I love humans. Isn't it all so tragic and wonder-filled and beautiful? Doesn't it all reveal some tiny thread of some great cosmic story we'll finally understand at the end of time? Isn't it all bigger than us?

[noosphe-re]

The good, of course, is always beautiful, and the beautiful never lacks proportion.

Plato

[lighthearted-science]

The transcendentals (Latin: transcendentalia) are the properties of being and are connected with three main human abilities; to think, wish and feel. They correspond to three aspects of the human field of interest and are their ideals; science (truth), the arts (beauty) and religion (goodness). Philosophical disciplines that study them are logic, aesthetics and ethics.

Wikipedia

[apenitentialprayer]

My Own Holy Guardian Angel Repeats the Prayer I Make, by Elizabeth Wang

Dear Jesus, bless our intellect. Grant that it may be purged of all false beliefs and all misunderstandings [...], and that the good angels may flood our intellects with thoughts that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and gracious. Hail Mary...

adapted from the Fifteen Hail Marys Devotion, with Petitions for Chastity (Petition #10)

[noosphe-re]

The transcendentals (Latin: transcendentalia) are the properties of being and are connected with three main human abilities; to think, wish and feel. They correspond to three aspects of the human field of interest and are their ideals; science (truth), the arts (beauty) and religion (goodness). Philosophical disciplines that study them are logic, aesthetics and ethics.

Wikipedia