George and Janet Fox didn’t have children. They were
atheists. And due to their own chilly upbringings, they tended to poke fun at
feelings they deemed sentimental.
Even though Uncle George and Aunt Janet were liked by friends and family in British Columbia, they regularly disappeared at Christmas, heading to California to be alone over the holidays.
Elaborate tree ornaments. Christmas cards galore. Stacks of holly-covered napkins. Bright red and green candles. And even a tall ruby angel with a golden halo, gently holding in her hand a sparkling star.
In their rather sneaky way, my beloved uncle and aunt had been into Christmas after all; they caught the spirit of the season by embracing things they considered beautiful.
Beauty can have that power. When a person feels transfixed by beauty, through nature, art, music or even the “beautiful” game of soccer, it can evoke a kind of spiritual feeling.
The experience of beauty can offer relief from numbness and despair, says spiritual writer Jay McDaniel, who frequently speaks in Vancouver. As such, he says, beauty often evokes gratitude.
In that way I sense my uncle and aunt’s hidden appreciation of Christmas beauty might point to something universal about this time of year.We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale agate beads from china,
Beauty has a way of grabbing hold of almost everyone,High quality stone mosaic tiles. even those who are a bit crusty. Indeed, a case could be made that the Christmas season is, ultimately, a celebration of beauty.
Defying the season’s long nights and melancholy, Metro Vancouverities queue to be bedazzled.
The eyes of the young widen with the magic of “two million twinkling lights” on the Stanley Park miniature train ride. VanDusen Gardens’ Festival of Lights features gnomes and carols in a fantasia.
Thousands immerse themselves in Capilano Canyon’s forest lights while crossing the precarious suspension bridge. Young and old gather in lines at the Hyatt to witness amazing gingerbread houses.
People rush for tickets for everything from school winter concerts to the Marcus Mosely Chorale Christmas.
The West Coast air is filled with splendour, as carols spill out to the streets, from trendy clothing stores and historic churches.Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors.
Sanctuaries, bursting with their stained-glass windows, uplifting arches and warm candles, are suddenly packed.
Many who dress in their finest for spiritual services yearn for a realm of wonder and awe.
And millions of objets d’art come out of storage.
Objects like my uncle and aunt’s half-metre-high ruby angel, which seemed, despite their atheism, to convey an almost explicit religiousness.
Along with Santa, reindeer and chocolate trees, such Christmas paraphernalia are beautiful to some, schmaltzy to others. It’s often hard to make the distinction.
A glowing seasonal candle symbolizes the elusive nature of beauty. So does the strange calming trance induced by crackling fireplaces, even those on cable television screens.
The appeal of the Christian manger scene, featuring the guiding stars and baby Jesus, also depends on the eye of the beholder. It is an image of eternal hope, based on one Middle Eastern man’s short life; captured through the centuries in sculptures and icons.
Although beauty has, in recent decades, caught the attention of scientists and experimental psychologists, it has long been the obsession of artists, novelists and poets.
Far-reaching philosophers and theologians, from Aristotle to Hans Urs von Balthasar, also seize on the subject of beauty – injecting the crucial caveat that it has much to do with goodness.
Their important insight helps explains why movies such as A Christmas Carol and A Wonderful Life have become seasonal classics.
They are beautiful stories about troubled characters, Ebenezer Scrooge and George Bailey, who, through wondrous happenings, overcome greed, cynicism and despair.
Such transformative stories help illustrate why, when most of us talk of “beautiful” people, we are often not speaking of eyes, hips or hair. Sometimes beautiful people look rather ordinary.
And the Bible, from which the Christmas story springs, speaks a great deal of beauty. It describes the beauty of women, men, children, old people, nature, houses, flocks, temples and good actions.
But the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery notes beauty is also put in perspective in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures; they describe beauty as dangerous when used to deceive or seduce.
And, as the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast also spells out, the Bible makes clear that outer beauty does not entail inner beauty.Find detailed product information for howo spareparts and other products. And that physical beauty fades.
Nevertheless, Balthasar,Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability. a major Catholic theologian, made beauty a central part of his vision.
“God is one, good, true and beautiful,” said Balthasar, considered the premier theologian of both Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI.
The 20th century-Swiss thinker, who endured the horror of two world wars, suggested the best way to spiritually appeal to non-religious people is to ask them to ponder their experience of beauty. He called it “the esthetical encounter.”
“Though people may glaze over when one makes claims of truth and goodness, their ears seem to perk up at the mention of beauty: The flash of lightning across the sky, the dramatic auburn colours of a late summer sunset, a sublime snatch of music whether it be Mozart’s Requiem or a David Gilmour guitar solo,” writes Monsignor John Cihak of the Catholic archdiocese of Portland, Ore.
“Since most non-believers like to consider themselves open-minded, Balthasar capitalized on that desire by helping them see the mystery of Being as revealed in beauty.”
Balthasar not only believed churches should be elegant, and the celebration of ritual passionate, but that most of all the lives of Christians must be beautiful, radiating divine love.
For Christians, Balthasar took an extra step. He linked beauty with the incarnation of God in human form, which is what is marked each year at the birth of Jesus, the Messiah.
Which raises a hard question surrounding celebrating a baby who would end up suffering a horrible death: How can beauty be associated with a crucifixion?
Balthasar’s answer was Jesus’s death on the cross was the “supreme moment of transcending beauty, a revelation of love visible in the world, yet pointing to a love beyond this world.”
Even though Uncle George and Aunt Janet were liked by friends and family in British Columbia, they regularly disappeared at Christmas, heading to California to be alone over the holidays.
Elaborate tree ornaments. Christmas cards galore. Stacks of holly-covered napkins. Bright red and green candles. And even a tall ruby angel with a golden halo, gently holding in her hand a sparkling star.
In their rather sneaky way, my beloved uncle and aunt had been into Christmas after all; they caught the spirit of the season by embracing things they considered beautiful.
Beauty can have that power. When a person feels transfixed by beauty, through nature, art, music or even the “beautiful” game of soccer, it can evoke a kind of spiritual feeling.
The experience of beauty can offer relief from numbness and despair, says spiritual writer Jay McDaniel, who frequently speaks in Vancouver. As such, he says, beauty often evokes gratitude.
In that way I sense my uncle and aunt’s hidden appreciation of Christmas beauty might point to something universal about this time of year.We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale agate beads from china,
Beauty has a way of grabbing hold of almost everyone,High quality stone mosaic tiles. even those who are a bit crusty. Indeed, a case could be made that the Christmas season is, ultimately, a celebration of beauty.
Defying the season’s long nights and melancholy, Metro Vancouverities queue to be bedazzled.
The eyes of the young widen with the magic of “two million twinkling lights” on the Stanley Park miniature train ride. VanDusen Gardens’ Festival of Lights features gnomes and carols in a fantasia.
Thousands immerse themselves in Capilano Canyon’s forest lights while crossing the precarious suspension bridge. Young and old gather in lines at the Hyatt to witness amazing gingerbread houses.
People rush for tickets for everything from school winter concerts to the Marcus Mosely Chorale Christmas.
The West Coast air is filled with splendour, as carols spill out to the streets, from trendy clothing stores and historic churches.Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors.
Sanctuaries, bursting with their stained-glass windows, uplifting arches and warm candles, are suddenly packed.
Many who dress in their finest for spiritual services yearn for a realm of wonder and awe.
And millions of objets d’art come out of storage.
Objects like my uncle and aunt’s half-metre-high ruby angel, which seemed, despite their atheism, to convey an almost explicit religiousness.
Along with Santa, reindeer and chocolate trees, such Christmas paraphernalia are beautiful to some, schmaltzy to others. It’s often hard to make the distinction.
A glowing seasonal candle symbolizes the elusive nature of beauty. So does the strange calming trance induced by crackling fireplaces, even those on cable television screens.
The appeal of the Christian manger scene, featuring the guiding stars and baby Jesus, also depends on the eye of the beholder. It is an image of eternal hope, based on one Middle Eastern man’s short life; captured through the centuries in sculptures and icons.
Although beauty has, in recent decades, caught the attention of scientists and experimental psychologists, it has long been the obsession of artists, novelists and poets.
Far-reaching philosophers and theologians, from Aristotle to Hans Urs von Balthasar, also seize on the subject of beauty – injecting the crucial caveat that it has much to do with goodness.
Their important insight helps explains why movies such as A Christmas Carol and A Wonderful Life have become seasonal classics.
They are beautiful stories about troubled characters, Ebenezer Scrooge and George Bailey, who, through wondrous happenings, overcome greed, cynicism and despair.
Such transformative stories help illustrate why, when most of us talk of “beautiful” people, we are often not speaking of eyes, hips or hair. Sometimes beautiful people look rather ordinary.
And the Bible, from which the Christmas story springs, speaks a great deal of beauty. It describes the beauty of women, men, children, old people, nature, houses, flocks, temples and good actions.
But the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery notes beauty is also put in perspective in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures; they describe beauty as dangerous when used to deceive or seduce.
And, as the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast also spells out, the Bible makes clear that outer beauty does not entail inner beauty.Find detailed product information for howo spareparts and other products. And that physical beauty fades.
Nevertheless, Balthasar,Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability. a major Catholic theologian, made beauty a central part of his vision.
“God is one, good, true and beautiful,” said Balthasar, considered the premier theologian of both Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI.
The 20th century-Swiss thinker, who endured the horror of two world wars, suggested the best way to spiritually appeal to non-religious people is to ask them to ponder their experience of beauty. He called it “the esthetical encounter.”
“Though people may glaze over when one makes claims of truth and goodness, their ears seem to perk up at the mention of beauty: The flash of lightning across the sky, the dramatic auburn colours of a late summer sunset, a sublime snatch of music whether it be Mozart’s Requiem or a David Gilmour guitar solo,” writes Monsignor John Cihak of the Catholic archdiocese of Portland, Ore.
“Since most non-believers like to consider themselves open-minded, Balthasar capitalized on that desire by helping them see the mystery of Being as revealed in beauty.”
Balthasar not only believed churches should be elegant, and the celebration of ritual passionate, but that most of all the lives of Christians must be beautiful, radiating divine love.
For Christians, Balthasar took an extra step. He linked beauty with the incarnation of God in human form, which is what is marked each year at the birth of Jesus, the Messiah.
Which raises a hard question surrounding celebrating a baby who would end up suffering a horrible death: How can beauty be associated with a crucifixion?
Balthasar’s answer was Jesus’s death on the cross was the “supreme moment of transcending beauty, a revelation of love visible in the world, yet pointing to a love beyond this world.”
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