"Useless" Beauty

In my day job (engineering) I'm never asked to concern myself with "beauty". Perhaps the Industrial Design folks talk about it, but I doubt if beauty outranks ergonomics or ease of use even in their circles. Certainly there is elegance in machine design, software design, etc. - but it isn't the most important thing. Engineers by training, if not by nature, are pragmatic, hands-on, get-it-done types. At least the ones I hang out with are. Most times, brute force suffices...elegance is unnecessary.

But it's not just us engineers. American culture in general seems to be more interested in "usefulness" than in "beauty." What price do we pay as a culture for this imbalance? While boredom, depression, frustration, anger, agitation, rudeness, self-centeredness, and a host of other evils may not all spring from this fundamental error, surely it contributes. That is, when we reduce appreciating a thing to simply using a thing, it leaves us somehow dissatisfied. Our soul feeds on beauty (i.e. the reflection of the Divine) like our bodies need food. When we don't get it, internal and invisible forces within us become malnourished and start to malfunction. We end up substituting all kinds of base things in a desperate attempt to feed our soul or at least distract it. But it doesn't work. At best, we get a temporary reprieve from our perception of the absurdity of it all and even our ability to comprehend beauty becomes compromised.

But thank God, beauty is all around us. And thank God, it is very subversive. It is hard to defend oneself against beauty. Against all odds it penetrates us now and again, and we almost involuntarily find ourselves appreciating rather than using. It is a very small step from there to giving thanks to the Holy Triune God Who creates and sustains all things. Then perhaps, real joy is possible. I say "perhaps" because unfortunately I've spent the majority of my life undervaluing beauty and my soul has the scars to prove it. But I have experienced that joy a little, and deeply believe that it is there. I've just got to learn, by God's grace, to give beauty its proper place. Far from being useless, beauty is essential.