When the Homily is about Immunology

Selfless Beauty

What to do with beauty? What to do, what to do, what to do?

It drove me mad. It didn't fit. I hated the fact that it appealed so much to me on a level I'd not experienced or cultivated before...it was illuminating, and in the light the rooms within me seemed quite untidy.

This poem, that painting, or some great work of literature laying before my heart and eyes a profound act of selfless nobility which communicated more truth to me than any science or math text I'd read before. Truth which motiviated me, changed me, challenged me, and filled my heart with...with that much distrusted thing: feeling.

Why should these words strung together in such a way cause my heart to leap? Why should a stupid selfless act portrayed in fiction make me feel awe? Why should the word beauty have ever been invented or instrumented beyond the realm of reproduction? A mountain, a sunset, a beach, a canyon of grand scale - why should we humans take note of such pusposeless things? Why should we ponder them and our place in the world? Why should we fell compelled to create anything beyond the strictest of utiliatarian purposes? Why should we sing, even when there is no one around to listen?

Damned self-reflection in beauty! It haunts me still.

But beauty...despite the suffering...is the place where "natural theology" begins....not the sciences.

Thank you to my High School English teacher, Mr. Lee Leonardo, for showing me beauty...for therein I have found God. And I would not be Orthodox today where it not for that ever present haunting and longing for selfless beauty which you inspired in me. I wish I could find you and thank you in person.