Beauty, Good and Evil

Tonight, I led a Sunday evening worship service where the theme was "Beauty." I had one attendee, and per Matthew 18:20, that was just fine with me.

Before the service started, I decided to Google quotes about beauty. I was expecting fluffy sentimentalism about the clouds and sunsets, and there was plenty of that, but I also found a few warnings. The one that stuck out to me came from St. Augustine:

"Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked."

You know what this made me think of? Vampires.

OK, pop culture seems obsessed with vampires right now. Let me just set the record straight: I loathe Twilight. Loathe. I'll spare you my rant.

But I recently started watching the TV series Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. (Sidebar: Joss Whedon is brilliant.) My boyfriend (who is responsible for getting me into Buffy) was telling me the other day that one thing he likes about that series is how they represent vampires.

Most depictions of vampires go to one extreme or another. On one end, you have creatures that are clearly monsters (see 30 Days of Night). Pointy teeth, black eyes, definitely not human. Excuse me, I think you have a little blood on your chin. I'm going to go run and hide now. Call me back when the sun comes out. In a month.

On the opposite end, you have sexy pasty, dreamy creepy immortals who go to high school over and over again (WHY???), stalk teenage girls...and sparkle.

I said I wasn't going to rant.

Anyway, what my boyfriend said he appreciates about the vampires in Buffy is that a lot of the time they look like regular people--and not just regular people, but dark, mysterious, sexy people (oh, David Boreanaz...be still, my beating heart).

However, when they reveal their true selves, HOLY CRAP.

*whimper*

Temptation wouldn't be tempting if it didn't look good. If evil always showed its true face, we wouldn't have this whole sin problem.

Here's another quote I found and liked:

"That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful."

That's from somebody named Ninon de L'Enclos. So if something's beautiful, we know it's either good or bad, but if it's not beautiful, it's bad.

Of course, that just begs the question of our standards of beauty...but the fact remains that although we should always honor beauty in the natural world, in people, in worship, in the arts, etc., we should also be cautious of its seductive power and be able to distinguish true beauty from false beauty.

When you figure out how to do that, give me a call.