Beauty on Bonfire Night

As I type, I'm listening to Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini on Classic FM. (Apparently. So the internet tells me.) The orchestral strings soar over the richly chunky piano chords, coming to a pitch and then subsiding to let the piano's more delicate melody emerge again. There's just time to finish this paragraph as the piece comes to a beautiful, poignant close. On to something from 'Romeo and Juliet' by Tchaikovsky, now. The melody lifts. I type on.


From my window I can still see fireworks bursting in my peripheral vision. Stars and flowers, spraying and sparkling in the darkness. A vivid flash of light and colour flies every which way, an exploding pattern of shattering, bejewelled beauty, impressed on the senses for a moment, falling, dying, then gone.


Earlier this evening, the children delighted in the few sparklers we found in the storage passage from last year, twirling and waving the spitting, sparking sticks, captivated by their tiny blazes, as if a crowd of sparky fireflies were illuminating the night. Cries of 'Is that allll?!' when the rods burned down and we were left standing together in the dark, damp, garden.


Isn't it the nature of beauty to fade? The autumn leaves, stunning in their translucent splendour of reds and golds, drop one by one, leaving bare branches. The winter silhouettes come into a stark beauty of their own, but are surpassed in turn by the buds and flowers of spring. One beauty gives way to another in a cycle of bloom and death, loss and renewal. There's a grief as we lose something beautiful – even the inward memory, the picture in the mind's eye or photo captured in the moment of enjoyment, stirs mixed emotions of remembered pleasure and present lack. There's a longing, a wanting, in beauty recalled.


As I write I suddenly realise I'm trespassing blithely into CS Lewis territory – all this about joy and longing and we humans being made to experience the fulfilment of those longings which beauty stirs up in us. Lewis (author of the Narnia series but also many, many other books and essays and all sorts) was actually converted to Christianity when he realised that the great Christian story – the true story of God's work in history and eternity – is the great and beautiful truth of which all other myths, legends, stories and romances are a pale reflection.


I've never read (to my recollection) Lewis' work 'The Weight of Glory', but I've heard it quoted so often, and seen these themes in his other work, and found them to resonate so deeply, that I feel like I've internalised this perspective. Here's just one excerpt from that essay, pulled up easily as I google 'CS Lewis longing quote':


'The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.'


Actually, the echoes of beauty, the stirring up of longing towards what will satisfy, all come from one source. It's not that Christianity is merely a pleasing story, the most beautiful story, if you will. Rather, breathing life into the narrative of the Christian Scriptures, standing behind them and speaking through them, is a Person. A Person who is beautiful, good, and true in Himself. Intellectual assent to the tenets of the Christian faith won't satisfy your longing. Reading the Bible, though it is a beautiful book, a literary feast and a compelling narrative, won't get you there on its own either. Knowing Jesus, who breathed out those words, will. And how can you know Him? You have to read the story. You'll meet Him in its pages, from the first page to the last. And when you do, if you do, you'll be able to sing this old hymn and know that it's true.


'O Christ, in Thee my soul hath found,
And found in Thee alone,
The peace, the joy I sought so long,
The bliss till now unknown.

Now none but Christ can satisfy,
None other name for me;
There's love and life and lasting joy,
Lord Jesus, found in Thee.' 

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