Why are we transfixed by
waterfalls? Falling water provides no benefit beyond the modern inventions of
the water-wheel and the hydroelectric dam. What is it then that draws our eye;
transfixes our gaze? It is beauty, but why do we assign beauty even to things
and moments that provide no basic survival need? We understand the beauty of
the hemlocks and the rocks and the rippling water because we intrinsically
understand that for something to be beautiful, it must have one who imbued it
with beauty; with meaning. We subconsciously acknowledge a creator when we see
the world for what it is: beautiful. In those moments of transcendence we
assert rightly (if unknowingly) that to create such beauty, such a creator must
be eminently more beautiful and creative. If life were merely based on the
conditions of survival we would view it in the cold, calculating eye of the materialist.
It would be like seeing in black and white. Even the materialist, though,
cannot escape beauty. In an attempt to redirect this err, she ascribes it to
substitute deities such as Mother Nature or Chance, but the beauty remains, and
we cannot deny its pull on our hearts.
When I look at your heavens, the work of
your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which you have
set in place,
What is man that you are mindful of him,
And the son of man that you care for
him?
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