Beauty from Ashes

I hope this ramble-y little post makes some sense.  I've come down with another lung infection and had a killer migraine yesterday, so I'm not sure how well I was able to articulate myself, but 7 posts in 7 days waits for no man, so here you go!

Dostoevsky wrote that beauty will save the world (The Idiot).

When we went to Austria in the summer of 2012, I rediscovered some parts of myself I thought were lost when we visited Salzburg.  I wrote a little about that journey here, but mostly I discovered that I need beauty and goodness in my life in order to have some sense of peace.  A lot has happened since then, and I confess that I've forgotten some of those very important lessons.  There is much in city living that ugly, dirty, and depressing, and it can be very easy to slip into forgetting to see the forest for the trees.  There is also much to like about living in the city--this winter would have been much more difficult for us if we had been living in the suburbs or somewhere more rural.  So even though my basic vision of the beauty in creation involves isolated rural landscapes, I'm trying to adjust to the urban reality of my daily life.  And that landscape has its own sort of beauty; one must look harder to see it.

I think one of the first things that people notice upon entering an Orthodox church are the externals of it--the physical space is designed to engage all the senses, and the iconography, the incense, the music, the candles, the chanting, etc. are all part of that.  It is to remind us of heaven, and the heavenly cloud of witnesses that surround us always, to relive the creation and salvation story through the liturgy, to point our minds and hearts to worship God and to pray for the salvation of our selves and the world.

When we first moved to this part of the country, we were underwhelmed by many of the local churches, particularly the iconography, which was heavily influenced by the Romanticism that overtook Russian iconography in the late 19th century.  It seemed so at odds, both liturgically and aesthetically, with the traditional Byzantine style iconography to which we were accustomed.  I myself studied iconography with the Prosopon School, and learned the Rublev method, which is fairly contiguous with Byzantine styles.  Aesthetics mean a lot to me, and speak to me in visceral ways, so to find so much of the iconography of the churches to be of a distinct Western style, full of sentimentalism, was disappointing. Lately, however, I find myself revising that opinion, as I think those 19th century images have much to teach me about beauty, and about a window on the soul.

Merciful Savior Church, Nizhni Novgorod, Russia

A few weeks ago, I had the very rare opportunity to attend a Saturday Vespers by myself.  I went to the Russian parish that is an easy walk from our house, and entered the candle-lit darkness of the nave.  It was womb-like, even though the church was cold.  The fragrance of incense lingered on the air, and the brass candle stands, the gold on various icons, the threads of the analogian covers all sparkled in the low light.  I breathed a deep sigh, and felt something go out of me, a pressure that lives on my shoulders most days.  I was transported back to my first experiences of the Orthodox Church in Russia, and to the sure conviction I had upon entering that God dwelled there.

The church in which I spent the most amount of time in those days was in Nizhni Novgorod, a city about seven hours east of Moscow.  The church was not large, but very old, and filled with iconography, both painted frescos and murals, as well as loose mounted icons.  Being Protestant, and having no sense of the history of iconography, those 19th century sentimental images seemed quite familiar to me.  They were similar to the ones I'd seen in Bible story books growing up, and were reassuring.

Merciful Savior Church, Interior, Nizhni Novgorod, Russia

We could have a discussion about the theology of these Romantic-type icons, but I don't think that is worth going into here.  The point is, how do these images help me to focus my mind on God, to journey to salvation, to imitate Christ?  I'm not sure I could articulate exactly how they do, but they do.  I feel movement in my soul when I'm surrounded by beauty, and it pushes me to prayer, to examine my worldliness, to understand the myriad of ways in which I fall short of the glory of God.  I understand more viscerally how deep the thorn in my wounded soul, and how impossible it is for me to draw it out myself.

I will pursue beauty.  I will look for the beauty beneath the mask of ugliness and sin, I will try to look past the spiritual sickness of the world and see the creation of God.  I will remind myself (again) of my purpose in this life.  I know I will stumble, I know I will fall, and sometimes, it may take me a while to get back up again, but as I journey to the Cross this Lent, I will remind myself of my need for salvation.

A blessed Fast to us all, and forgive me, a sinner.