He was right, as usual, actually I found two blog posts in the letter excerpt but one thing at a time. Today's post involves the subject that Dad pointed out. C.S. Lewis wrote to his father about how Salisbury looked in the moonlight. He talks about the shadows and the light and how it's highlights the wonderful simplicity of the structure that makes it so different from Wells. I think it's those very differences that cause him to say that Salisbury repelled him at first.
He goes on to say "Doesn't Kipling talk of the Taj-Mahal as 'a sigh made marble'? One the same metaphor might say that Wells is an age made into stone and Salisbury is a petrified moment. But what a moment! The more one looks the more it satisfies."
The thing that Dad pointed out and that struck my interest also is the beauty of what the artist creates. Monuments, cities, paintings, statues, all these incredible things that are created and are absolutely beautiful. We talk about them, dream about them, we build entire museums to display them.
And yet all of these beautiful things pale in comparison of creation. Think about it. What else do we build in order to display beautiful things that fascinate us? Zoos. Aquariums. We have entire careers made of photographing and displaying pictures of people and landscapes. Not to mention the fact that when we look at some of these things that we call art the flip side of what we see is the depravity of some of man’s creation. Then we look at the creation of earth, the plants, the stars, the order and splendor and vastness of the universe and the things that man has created while still beautiful, pale in comparison to the vastness and splendor of our God and Creator. We will never be as fascinated with things like architecture as we are with creation because as amazing and beautiful as man made things are they will never compare to the wonder of creation.
So next time you're walking through a city look around, notice the beauty and thank God for the imagination and skill he gave to those who built it. But also take the time to notice the beauty of creation, everything from the people you're walking by to the clouds in the sky to the brilliance of the rivers, lakes, mountains, oceans or deserts that you come across.
He is to be worshiped in all of this not just creativity he has blessed people with and the beauty of what He has created but the unfathomable variety that he has created. Everything from an earthworm to a human to an entire universe which Psalms tell us he suspends in the sky and holds it in place by his own hand.
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