The world is not a perfect place, by any stretch of the imagination. Rampant secularism, endless noise, social unrest, political upheaval, and cultural strife mark our times, perhaps more than ever before. It is apparent that the answer does not lie where society’s efforts are focused. More commercialism, more division, more “us vs. them” – this is cultural suicide, and we see our society gasping for breath already.
What can be done?
Jimmy Mitchell has some ideas. Challenging, direct, and timely ideas.
Mitchell is the founder of Love Good, a formation platform that empowers everyday Christians to bring beauty to the forefront of their lives, and in every context – work, family, parish life, etc. He is passionate about evangelization, particularly through the way of beauty.
His new book is Let Beauty Speak: The Art of Being Human in a Culture of Noise (Ignatius, 2023). Mitchell explores ten principles which empower Christians to evangelize through beauty, showing the world what it means to be human. The book looks beyond merely natural solutions to the problems of the world, while seeking answers in the beauty of holiness.
Mitchell recently spoke with Catholic World Report about his new book, the uniqueness of beauty, and how beauty can lead us to God.
Catholic World Report: How did the book come about?
Jimmy Mitchell: After years of observing and accompanying artists out of Nashville, I grew increasingly convinced of the unique power that beauty has to evangelize our culture of noise.
Because the last two decades have been dictated by relativism, truth and goodness have been kicked to the curb and left beauty as the last-standing transcendental. This book is divided into ten principles that empower everyday Catholics to bring beauty to the forefront of their lives and transform culture around them.
You don’t have to be Michelangelo or Mozart to evangelize through beauty. You simply have to live in such a way that your life captivates people around you with the beauty of being fully human and fully alive. That’s what this book is all about.
CWR: The subtitle of the book is “The Art of Being Human in a Culture of Noise”. How does noise disrupt us to the point that we need advice on how to be human in a noisy world?
Mitchell: Noise has a dehumanizing effect on the soul. It has a way of distracting us from the essentials and turning us in on ourselves and our base desires. Only with silence and humility can we recognize the beauty of God in us and around us. It’s what some great writers have called a sacramental imagination, an ability to see beyond the veil and recognize God’s glory in all things.
When beauty breaks through the noise, this lens through which we can see the world as God sees it becomes possible.
CWR: If we “let beauty speak”, what should we expect it to “say”?
Mitchell: Beauty ultimately speaks truth. They are inseparable transcendentals. However, there are very few enemies of beauty in today’s post-Christian culture, thereby making it a much easier place to start in our work of evangelization.
Even pondering our Lord’s public ministry is quite instructive. He always had a way of winning people over with the beauty of his love and then proclaiming difficult truths. The same should be true for us.
CWR: Have we lost a sense of awe in today’s world? How can we regain it?
Mitchell: We have certainly lost our sense of awe in today’s culture of noise. For example, the average American scrolls the distance to the top of Mount Everest and back every year with their phone.
When we’re not glued to screens, we’re inundated by soundbites. Most of us learn to live with anxiety and become accustomed to quiet desperation. And yet, there is nothing more human than standing in awe before the mysteries of life. There is nothing that will more quickly break through the noise and reclaim our childlike wonder than the great transcendental of beauty.
CWR: The eighth chapter is on suffering. How can suffering be beautiful?
Mitchell: Suffering, in and of itself, is ugly and painful. However, the fruits of suffering become beautiful when united to Christ on the cross.
This chapter on suffering is the most personal for me, as it recounts the experience of losing my older brother at a young age. While there was tremendous grief for me and my family amidst that unexpected tragedy, God brought healing to our wounds and beauty to our brokenness that convicted me of our Lord’s Resurrection like nothing else. What is more beautiful than Christians living fearlessly in the truth that Christ defeated death once and for all 2000 years ago?
CWR: What do you hope readers will take away from the book?
Mitchell: I hope readers are inspired to live their lives intentionally and beautifully, knowing that God has a unique and unrepeatable plan for each of us to bring his love into the world.
You don’t need to be an artist to encounter God through beauty or to use beauty to evangelize family and friends. It’s accessible to all of us and I dare say necessary like never before, given our cultural moment.
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Beauty is consistent with the divine presence. For example the crisis issue currently afflicting the Church is the conflict regarding the ancient liturgy[TLM] as if those who find peace and spiritual fulfillment in it are ‘dangerous’ backsliders. A complete reversal of the doctrines of Francis’ two predecessors. In Christ we have the revelation of the Father who is perfect beauty, incomprehensible pure love in the pouring out of his precious blood on the cross. The Mass is not simply a celebration rather a re presentation of the sacrifice on the cross. As a priest wisely said we cannot reject pure love. The
proposition by Francis that faith is the sole garment for receiving the Eucharist is akin to Lutheranism rather than Catholicism. It fosters the impression that anyone can receive, that repentance of sin is unnecessary. That of course is contrary to Christ as the ultimate judge of our salvation, whether we have obeyed the commandments. While exceptions exist they are made the rule. The rule is not the judgement of reason. Rather it is the measure. The rule is the innate capacity to judge between good and evil.
“…there are very few enemies of beauty in today’s post-Christian culture…”
Really? The Vicar of Christ recently feted an artist whose work depicted the Crucifixion of our Lord in a bucket of urine. Has the author looked at today’s style of dress with piercings, tatoos, orange and purple hair? Take a walk through the modern wing at NY’s Met and you’ll see little that qualifies as beauty. No, the enemies of Beauty abound, just as the enemies of the Good and the True abound. We need Catholic evangelizers in our culture to reorient people once again to the Good, the True and the Beautiful. A good place to begin would be inside the precincts of our own Church.
Deacon, then there’s the Fr Krupnik SJ charade that you’re aware of which adds to the deformation of artistic beauty. Krupnik’s soulless eyed images, inducing nuns to fornicate with him as religious expression, his scandalous protection by the Jesuits including Francis. Where has beauty ever been so malevolently identified with the divinity?
Correction. It’s Rupnik not Krupnik.
God bless his efforts against our “culture of noise”!
One quibble: “there are very few enemies of beauty in today’s post-Christian culture”. No, I think he’s wrong about that. Any enemy of truth and goodness is also an enemy of beauty. The idea that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is widespread and the corollary of the relativism of truth and goodness. Pornography is the deliberate mis-use of human beauty by mixing it with ugly actions. We should also expect such a tactic to be used in other areas, for instance, the use of pleasing music to accompany lyrics that are immoral. Advertising constantly uses beauty for tne purpose of trickery in the service of greed. What is being sold to you by the cute little baby, or handsome man or woman, in the commercial? Just as the devil works by mixing in small amounts of misleading lies into a conversation or line of thought, we should look for the mis-uses of beauty. They are everywhere.
Carl, thank you for this article. I just spent some time and money in making our Adoration Chapel more beautiful with statues, pictures of Our Lord and 2 small sturdy tables and 1 picture of the compassionate heart of St. Joseph near the pictures of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts. I did it to please Our Lord and to attract adorers with visible images of the unseen God present in the Host. The statues are the Infant of Prague, the Resurrected Christ and a picture of the Holy Face to go next to the Divine Mercy picture.Created beauty does have the power to raise our vision to the hidden and uncreated Beauty who is God.
Here is a timely subject, well discussed. Beauty today is an issue because ugliness has overtaken society. Ugliness has champions and sponsors. One such example comes to mind, a provocatuer Andre Serrano who famously concocted a picture of a crucifix in urine. But, this is small potatoes. Chicago has a sculpture made by Picasso, an ugly meaningless combination of nearly indestructible metal which many call a “flying monkey.” This cost millions of dollars and yet it sits prominently on public property in down=town Chicago. Why? Who finances this kind of stuff. Compare that to Michelangelo’s Pieta, a magnificent work of art full of meaning, depicting a world-changing event, the death of Jesus and the Great Sorrow of his Mother. Picasso’s work was financed and support by rich people, people who despise the Great Western Tradition of art, people like Gertrude Stein.
The soul needs guidance to appreciate the different levels of beauty as it ascends towards a deeper appreciation of the wonders of God and His creation, which includes manmade works of art. Early on in my schooling, I was taught that true beauty arouses a noble emotion. And that “art for art’s sake” does not necessarily mean beautiful.
While the beauty of nature is the baseline that God Himself uses to evangelize and manifest His presence to simple souls, the soul should be nourished with Catholic ethos as it matures in discerning the beautiful from the ugly, or seeing beauty in what may seem to be initially ugly.
As a child raised in a small Philippine town whose people’s main concern was where, how, and when the next meal was coming, my initial course in art appreciation was to pray and gaze at statues of saints in the village church, and to paint little colorful flowers on wooden clogs, a cottage industry in my village. I can never call my people “simple folk” when the pat solution to any relationship problem was to “toughen up” or “get out.”
Then, almost like a dream, I found myself sitting in the classroom of an exclusive girls’ college in Manila, suddenly reading “Oedipus Rex” and the unbelievable ugliness depicted in American gothic literature, i.e., “Suddenly Last Summer,” and “A Streetcar Named Desire,” by Tennessee Williams, “Reflections in a Golden Eye,” by Carson McCullers, ” etc. Even “Wise Blood” by the celebrated Catholic author Flannery O’Connor I found utterly disturbing. I attributed it to my immaturity, different cultural background, and insufficient command of English.
It was only on coming to America, in constant observation of its diverse population and cultures, in my old age and a better grasp of English language that I am now learning to see the beauty in these strange works of art. I’m still not sure if they arouse in me that “noble emotion.”