Life and Its Manifestations Are Beautiful
Pt. 3 of the Beauty, Love, and Life Framework
The word ‘breathtaking’ has to be one of my favorite descriptors for beauty. The word captures how beauty steals the breath of the one who fully receives it. It demonstrates the power of beauty, and the arresting embarrassment of the one who sees that which is beautiful. ‘Breathtaking’ describes the object of beauty, yes, but it also encapsulates the subject as well. Entwining the two together. After all, something can’t be breathtaking unless someone’s breath is taken. Do you remember those times when the beauty of someone or something stole your breath? This could be a phenomenon like a sunset over a valley. Or, it could be a quiet moment as the light strikes the face of someone you’ve known for decades, and you realize (maybe for the first time), just how much you love them.
Those breathtaking moments always seem to have a tinge of awkward self-consciousness to them. I can’t count the number of times I have seen the beauty of another person and tripped over my words while talking, or more dramatically, tripped over my feet while walking. Moments when I lose control over my basic mental or physical functions because of the beauty of someone else. It’s nothing too serious, and if I am honest, I look back at those moments and smile because to have your breath stolen by beauty is one of the most human experiences. A reminder that in this world of conditioned responses and explanations, there is still something that is capable of exerting itself over us and pointing us to that which is ultimately Divine.1
This sense of awkwardness or embarrassment that we experience can be a healthy thing in that it can also be humbling to behold beauty. But it ought to never stir up shame. I think queer people are more conscious than most of the "rules” of beauty that exist in a heteronormative world. Mainly because like actors playing a part, we’ve had to study the script that much harder, and had to learn what is right by “being” wrong so often. From a young age, queer people have had to form rubrics on beauty. Creating mental charts with columns of questions like: Who or what is beautiful? Who can appreciate that beauty? How are you allowed to appreciate that beauty? And, how do you present your own beauty? In a heteronormative world, if you are straight and cis (particularly male), then your basic inclinations and how you answer these questions for yourself are by default the right answers. For those though who are queer, our basic inclinations or answers to these questions are (for the most part) wrong. The image keeps coming to my mind of when in grade school we had to take those dreaded multiplication table exams. In desperation I would sometimes look over at my friends' answers and then furiously try to erase my answer in order to match theirs. “I don’t get it!” I would often yell internally, both about math, but also about the rules of beauty my culture taught me. Neither of which came naturally for me. But just as mathematics is only one degree of reality, so too are the heteronormative “rules” of beauty (praise God).
It’s taken a good deal of time as well as a ton of pain and love to get to a point where I can finally ask the questions I didn’t dare to ask when I was younger. Through the process of reconciling my faith and sexuality I’ve tried to understand the relationship between beauty, love, and life. And in doing so, I’ve focused on three main questions. The first question, “what is the point of beauty?” reminded me that beauty incites love, which is a good thing. The second question which followed was, “what am I supposed to do in response to beauty?” Instead of killing off any desire that beauty awoke within me, I learned that rightly expressed love produces life. And finally, I come to the last question, “What is it in beauty itself that we are attracted to, and why do we find certain features or expressions beautiful?” It is this question that I now direct my attention. In short, it is really life and its manifestations which are beautiful, because they are ultimately expressions of love.
Before I go on further, a quick note. I really do wish as a kid someone would have taken the time to ask me why I found someone or something beautiful. I wish they would have asked it without judgment. Because I look back now at my youth and see the wounds that came from failing the “straight” rubric of beauty. Because I look back now at my youth and wonder at all the opportunities I missed to give glory to God. I wish someone would have placed their hand on mine while I tried to erase my answers, and said, “It’s okay. What do you see?” So maybe this work is really just a letter to a young Chase who felt like a failure because he couldn’t fully express how breathtaking the world was without being told he was going to hell for it. It’s okay, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” (1 Cor. 13:12 NLT).
What are we looking for when we declare someone or something beautiful? What is it in the fabric, the color, or the structure of a garment that makes it beautiful? Or the beauty in a face, or body, the poetry, the film–what is it that we seek, find, and then recognize as beauty? There are probably many ways a person can go about answering these questions. For myself when it comes to questions of beauty, I can only start (at least sincerely) from my vantage point as a gay cis man. But my hope is that from that starting point, I can explore how we can all come to the same answer, namely that it’s really life and its manifestations which we seek, find, and recognize as beauty. I don’t intend to assert that one aesthetic style or manifestation of beauty is somehow of a higher nature or quality than all others. I do assert though that behind all of these manifestations of beauty, no matter the particular aesthetic palate, they are attractive because in them we find signs of life.
Two aesthetic styles from the western church are helpful examples in this regard. The first being the Baroque style characterized by movement, opulence, and drama. The second being the Shaker style characterized by utility, simplicity, and regularity. In comparison, these styles initially appear diametrically opposed.2 The Baroque style sees an empty space and fills it with embellishment and ornamentation (when in doubt, put a cherub on it!). The Shaker style sees a space and cleans it for simplicity (a cluttered space is a cluttered mind). It might be too easy or convenient to situate these aesthetic styles in opposition to each other. They are, after all, rooted in different times and geographical spaces, so the extent to which they are in conversation with each other is hard to say. Though for all their apparent differences, they do reflect perhaps a deeper instinct. Both aesthetic styles at their core seek to manifest life. The Baroque style does this by showcasing the abundance of life in all its extravagance. While the Shaker style manifests life through order and cleanliness, a repudiation of disease and rot that destroys life. It is life that we are seeking, recognizing, and declaring as beautiful though we each may find it in different guise.
“It’s giving life”, idiom. An expression used to announce extreme excitement.3 See also, “Got my life”, idiom. An expression of total happiness, enjoyment, and fulfillment.4 Both of these idioms originated in the Black gay community and the larger queer trans people of color community. I first heard these expressions while watching a fashion competition show on TV. While a particular model walked the runway in an exquisite dress, the show cut to one of the other competitors later describing the look. The competitor began throwing out comments like, “it’s giving ferocity. It’s giving Grace Kelly, It’s giving power. It’s giving elegance.” And then finally after a long grocery list, they said in a grand summation, “it’s giving life!” I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back I think that expression might be the truest assessment of beauty one could make. That dress gave life to anyone who looked at it or wore it. Nothing more or less could be said. That competitor picked up the thread of beauty and like Theseus followed it out of a labyrinth to the conclusion that in truth, what we seek in beauty is life.
For myself, I first realized this one day while working the reference desk at the Library. 3pm hit me with the afternoon slump. Earlier that day I had been at the gym which was filled with some absolutely gorgeous men. I mention this because I noticed that while at the reference desk in my exhausted state, my mind instantly began to wander back to earlier when I had been surrounded by so much beauty. Now, normally if left unexamined this wandering toward beauty is usually a fast track to lust (for me at least).5 But this particular time, I wanted to see if there was another trajectory I could take without pretending I didn’t feel something or try to kill off all sense of desire. I asked myself a simple question, “what do I feel?” And after a moment I wrote that I felt tired, exhausted, listless. I felt like a hollow shell, life seeping out of me. But why did all of those feelings make me wander back to a time where I felt the presence of beauty? The next question felt natural, “what do you want?” But the answer surprised me a little. I didn’t want to just feel the opposite of all of that. No, what I really wanted at that moment was to feel life come back to me. I wanted beauty to come and rescue me from death. That feeling of being rescued is greater than feeling like you never needed to be rescued in the first place. And what’s more, that feeling of being rescued by beauty, nothing can compare to that. I wanted to feel beauty wrap its strong and tender arms around me, lift me up from the pit, and bring me into a warm sunlit day. To feel that release in my body and mind. A weakening, a surrendering, a vulnerability perhaps–and then to find perfect peace, strength, and life. Like coming in from the cold to a fire in the hearth and tomato soup and grilled cheese. Somehow, it’s the feeling of being nourished. The feeling of being taken care of. The feeling of life flowing back into your veins from being loved by beauty. All this to say, my mind wandered to a time and place where I found beauty, because where I find beauty I find life.
This is evident for myself when I consider the human form and the physical attributes I find beautiful. I think of the veins set like rivers in a forearm declaring vitality. The silhouette, which is lean in places of movement, and prominent near places of strength and power. I think of what artists call the Adonis belt, the two shallow grooves on the abdomen which run from the hip bone to the pubis. How those grooves seem like God himself dragged his finger along the flesh in admiration and fused the body together. Declaring, “this creation of mine will dance and move along the earth, swim the ocean, and soar in the sky.” I am reminded of the vibrancy in the eyes, spilling out light from a deep reservoir within. And all of these examples and countless more remind me of life, and my desire for it.
But someone’s beauty isn’t just tied to their appearance, though that is often the first point of perception. Many times I am drawn to the beauty of others not just because of how they appear, but also how they make me feel. I often find beauty in the presence of those I feel safe with. Something I am learning comes from being jettisoned into the darker aspects of life before most. When I feel at home with someone, I feel space to breathe, I feel nourished. “You mean I can have this too? I can stretch and grow and run and dance and sing?” That–that is beautiful. That feeling, which we each have the blessing to offer to each other, is beautiful. As Pádraig Ó Tuama, writes, “That which feels lives.”6 We have the ability to make each other feel safe, loved, and even radiant. I wonder sometimes why we don’t offer this blessing to each other more. I at least struggle to offer it. Perhaps it starts though with knowing you give to others what you have been given. Which is why my faith seems to stick to my bones. At my lowest moment, whenever that might be, even if mother or father forsake me, God will love me. It’s that kind of love that will change your life. That kind of truly unconditional love is the security from which we bless each other. It is life-giving. And it is beautiful.
If life and its manifestations are beautiful, why are they so? What is it about life that we find beautiful? I might suggest that it has to do with how we receive it. Or more precisely how life is given. I think of the gifts that I have received throughout my life. And in honesty, I can’t remember many of them. But I do remember the look on the faces of those giving the gifts and how they were given. Whether through eyes filled with wonder, elaborate tricks and surprises, or siblings and friends yelling at me to, “Open it, CHASE! Open it!”—Always, without exception, they were given in love. So too we receive life and its manifestations. All life is the expression of love. Nothing is created which was not the outpouring of divine love. Every time we see, or feel, or generally experience beauty, we find life, and we are reminded of God’s love for us.
Anthony Esolen writes in his introduction to Purgatory by Dante, that “Innocent embarrassment is humility’s kissing cousin: it reminds us in a startling and awkwardly delightful way of our own insufficiency…He who cannot feel innocent embarrassment, I suppose, cannot feel wonder.” (Purgatory, p. xxvi)
Stephen Bayley in Ugly: The Aesthetics of Everything, p. 22, does an incredible job comparing these two styles.
Chloe O. Davis, The Queen’s English: The LGBTQIA+ Dictionary of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases, p.148.
Ibid., p.150.
I don’t think it has to be like that though. Much of this for myself has to do with growing up in a conservative church context in which the only way that you could appreciate the beauty of someone you were also sexually attracted to was in lusting after them. Which to me reeks of immaturity and is stunting the spiritual growth of so many (myself included).
Pádraig Ó Tuama, “The Place Between”, in Neither Here nor There: The Many Voices of Liminality, ed. Timothy Carson (Cambridge, UK., 2019), 17.
Love everything about this except the apostrophe in the title. Lovely work.