T
HE
F
IRST
F
ACE
: I
NTIMATIONS OF
B
EAUTY
A blind man recognizes a beloved face by barely touching it
with seeing fingers, and tears of joy, the true joy of recognition,
will fall from his eyes after a long separation.
OSIP MANDELSTAM, ‘The Word and Culture’
EVEN AMIDST CHAOS AND DISORDER, SOMETHING IN THE HUMAN mind continues still to seek beauty. From our very first moments in the world we seem to be on a quest for beauty. The first thing the new infant sees is the human face. That sighting affects us deeply; for instinctively we seek shelter, confirmation and belonging in the face of the mother. We cannot remember that time; but most of us spent endless hours of our early time simply gazing up into the face of the mother. No other subsequent image in the world will ever rival the significance of the face. The lives of those we know, need and love all dwell behind faces. We are inevitably drawn to the beauty of the face for it is there that we had our first inkling of beauty. In its form, presence and balance of left and right, the face offers the first intimation of the symmetry and order that lies at the heart of beauty. Without that hidden order and rhythm of pattern, there could be no beauty. Nature is full of hidden geometry and harmony, as is the human mind; and the creations of the mind that awaken or recreate this sense of pattern and order tend to awaken or unveil beauty. Symmetry satisfies us and coheres with our need for meaning and shelter in the world. Indeed, the notion of symmetry is central to the beauty of mathematics and science. It seems that physicists in choosing between different theories often feel that the more symmetrical one, generally, is the more beautiful and the truer.
Science tells us that the more symmetrical a face is, the more beautiful it is. Though order is necessary for beauty, the interesting thing is that a face that is not overburdened by structural perfection can still be very beautiful. More often than not it is the inner beauty of heart and mind that illuminates the face. A smile can completely transform a face. Ultimately, it is the soul that makes the face beautiful. Each face is its own landscape and is quietly vibrant with the invisible textures of memory, story, dream, need, want and gift that make up the beauty of the individual life. This is also the grace that love brings into one’s life. As the soul can render the face luminous so too can love turn up the hidden light within a person’s life. Love changes the way we see ourselves and others. We feel beautiful when we are loved, and to evoke an awareness of beauty in another is to give them a precious gift they will never lose. When we say from our heart to someone: ‘You are beautiful’, it is more than a statement or platitude, it is a recognition and invocation of the dignity, grandeur and grace of their spirit. There is something in the nature of beauty that goes beyond personality, good looks, image and fashion. When we affirm another’s beauty, we affirm something that cannot be owned or drawn into the grid of smallmindedness or emotional need. There is profound nobility in beauty that can elevate a life, bring it into harmony with the artistry of its eternal source and destination. Perhaps Beauty does not linger because she wishes to whet our appetite and refine our longing so that we enter more fully into the limitless harvest of our inner inheritance.
T
HE
J
EWEL WITHIN THE
F
LEETING
M
OMENT
BEYOND THE VEILS OF LANGUAGE AND THE NOISE OF ACTIVITY, the most profound events of our lives take place in those fleeting moments where something else shines through, something that can never be fixed in language, something given as quietly as the gift of your next breath. Days and nights unfold in the confidence and continuity of sequence. Most days take no notice of us; but then every so often there is a moment when time seems to crystallize. A voice changes tone and a deeper music becomes audible. A gaze holds and a hidden presence is glimpsed.
One year in university at the end of the semester I returned home for the summer holidays. When I walked into the kitchen my father looked up at me and I saw something in his gaze that I had never seen before. Some finality had entered his looking. Whether it was out in the mountains or among the fields around the house, his eyes had glimpsed a door opening towards him. His countenance had become more luminous and his natural gentleness was being claimed by a new silence. As we held each other for a moment in that gaze I knew death had picked his name out. Days later illness arrived and in three weeks the door of death had closed behind him. The gaze had revealed everything; time had stood still. The image of that gaze has always remained with me for it was a moment of the deepest and most tender knowing, a moment radiant with the strange beauty of sadness.
‘I
N
D
IFFICULT
T
IMES TO
K
EEP
S
OMETHING
B
EAUTIFUL IN
Y
OUR HEART
’
THERE ARE TIMES WHEN LIFE SEEMS LITTLE MORE THAN A MATTER of struggle and endurance, when difficulty and disappointment form a crust around the heart. Because it can be deeply hurt, the heart hardens. There are corners in every heart which are utterly devoid of illusion, places where we know and remember the nature of devastation. Yet though the music of the heart may grow faint, there is in each of us an unprotected place that beauty can always reach out and touch. It was Blaise Pascal who said: In difficult times you should always carry something beautiful in your mind.
Rilke said that during such times we should endeavour to stay close to one simple thing in nature. When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and the stillness gradually take us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent. When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth. This is also the experience of prayer. The tired machinations of the ego are abandoned. It no longer needs to push or prove itself in the combat of competition. Beneath the frenetic streams of thought, the quieter, elemental nature of the self takes over and calms our presence. Rather than taking us out of ourselves, nature coaxes us deeper inwards, teaches us to rest in the serenity of our elemental nature. When we go out among nature, clay is returning to clay. We are returning to participate in the stillness of the earth which first dreamed us. This stillness is rich and fecund. One might think that an invitation to enter into the stillness of nature is merely naïve romanticism that likes to indulge itself and escape from the cut and thrust of life into some narcissistic cocoon. This invitation to friendship with nature does of course entail a willingness to be alone out there. Yet this aloneness is anything but lonely. Solitude gradually clarifies the heart until a true tranquillity is reached. The irony is that at the heart of that aloneness you feel intimately connected with the world. Indeed, the beauty of nature is often the wisest balm for it gently relieves and releases the caged mind. Calmness flows in to wash away anxiety and worry. The thirteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart always encouraged such calmness: Gelassenheit. Over against the world with all its turbulence, distraction and worry, one should cultivate a style of mind that can reach through to an inner stillness and calm. The world cannot ruffle the dignity of a soul that dwells in its own tranquillity. Gradually, this serenity will begin to pervade our seeing and change the way we look at things.