Last Saturday was an interesting day.

I learned (kind of) how to clean my roller skates.

Gently threatened a friend’s boyfriend 🙂

Got slightly sunburnt.

And went to my last Cicero Society debate!

That last bit is what I want to focus on this week because while I didn’t end up getting called on to make a speech, I found the topic so intellectually stimulating I thought I’d write up what I would’ve said and post it here for those who might be interested!

See, the debate topic was on a proposition I’d never thought of before, but in the course of 3 hours (the duration of the debate), I was like I KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION!

Alas, God did not want it shared there.

He wanted it shared here!

Unless He doesn’t want it shared either.

In which case, I hope He destroys my computer.

…

Okay, it didn’t happen, so without further ado, I give you my musings on the resolution:

Resolved, Beauty Will Save The World

Let’s begin 🙂

First, A Definition:

In the Song of Solomon 4:7, the speaker tells his beloved,

“You are altogether beautiful, my dear. There is no flaw in you.”

Saturday morning (the day of the debate), I offhandedly remarked that it was a beautiful day.

It was flawless.

The sun was shining, it was a breezy 72 degrees, there were no mosquitos, flowers were blooming, and there was not enough pollen to mess with my allergies.

It was great!

And the ambiance was only made better by the fact that I got to have tacos with my friend and her boyfriend along the Georgetown waterfront before proceeding on to one of my favorite things (grocery shopping).

However, by close of day, having been walking around or sitting outside for close to six hours, I was… slightly baked.

Not full-on orangutan level, but there was a discernible traffic cone cast to my face, and as I was getting dressed for the swanky debate, I was like,

“Man, I wish I’d worn sunscreen today.”

And here’s the thing.

I’d had the opportunity to put sunscreen on–not once but twice–because I’d thought about putting some on before I left to meet my friend (didn’t do it) and she’d actually offered me sunscreen before we left for lunch with her boyfriend.

In fact!

Before we left her apartment, we’d had a hearty laugh over the fact that when I turned the corner, she hadn’t finished rubbing in her sunscreen yet.

It was laid on THICK, and I made a crack about how that was very Asian of her (as a general rule, Asian mamas will tell you skin and sun don’t mix!), but she said that wasn’t it.

Another friend of hers was in a class studying skin cancer and its effects and, as a consequence, SUNSCREEN, SUNSCREEN, SUNSCREEN had been drilled into her head.

I suggested,

“Maybe you should leave it like that. It’ll remind everyone else who’s not wearing sunscreen that they should be.”

She laughed and offered me some, but I said nah.

There’s cloud coverage.

I’ll be fine.

Right.

Fast forward to that night.

I’m sitting at the debate with a baked face next to another friend who really was looking orangatang-ish because he, like me, had neglected to put on sunscreen that AM, and we’re joking about the fact that we’ll probably been acquiring skin-cancer sooner rather than later, when suddenly, the answer to the resolution Beauty Will Save The World hit me like a baseball bat!

Beauty, in the aesthetic sense, can’t save the world because it is powerless against death.

Follow me, friends.

That morning, I’d noted that it was a beautiful day.

It was perfect.

Flawless.

Really could not have been better in any way.

And yet.

Despite the beauty of the day, I ended up with an irradiated face.

And yes, sunscreen definitely would’ve helped me, but it would not have changed the sun’s radioactivity.

In fact, when you think about it, putting on sunscreen is really just an embodied memento mori.

It’s a recognition of the fact that we need protection from the elements, and that consistent exposure is, in a word, deleterious.

It’s a hard truth, friends, but the most physically beautiful person in the world, given time and sun enough, is going to one day look like a craisin.

That’s a discomforting realization, but it’s one I think we all need to have.

And I think my man Rasputin described that awakening best when he said:

In the dark of the night I was tossing and turning
And the nightmare I had was as bad as can be!
It scared me out of my wits!
A corpse falling to bits!
Then I opened my eyes
And the nightmare was me!

Rasputin experienced death and decay personally.

I’m 23, but ongoing health issues have made me very aware that my body is going to run down eventually.

But maybe you’re totally healthy!

Completely wrinkle and sun-spot free!

Maybe you don’t see yourself as a corpse falling to bits, and when it comes to the universal biological clock, you plead ignorance.

Okay.

I get it.

It’s kind of gloomy to think about how you’re in the process of dying everyday.

But just because you don’t want to think about your own demise and decay doesn’t mean their reality goes away.

Death isn’t something you can ignore or forget.

In the fourth book of his Confessions, Saint Augustine reflects on the aftermath of his best friend’s death, saying,

“Everything on which I set my gaze was death.”

If you’ve ever lost someone you love, you know you can’t just “get over it.”

It completely changes the way you see the world, and all that hippie dippie New Age nonsense about what’s passed having no relevance or “living in the moment” is insufficient.

It’s not up to the task of reckoning with the felt reality of death.

In his phenomenal book A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis, reflecting on the death of his wife Joy, wrote this:

It is hard to have patience with people who say,
‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There
is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever
happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible.

Augustine and Lewis knew the heartrending, life-altering effects of death.

They knew someone could be here one moment and gone the next.

And none of us are exempt.

Nothing and no one on earth–no matter how aesthetically beautiful it is–can escape the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

We, all of us and all we love, are being physically wound down day-by-day.

Romans 8:21-22 says,

“All creation is in bondage to decay and is groaning with labor pains for its redemption.”

Friends, the idea that beauty in the aesthetic sense, whether manifested in bric-a-brac, Victoria’s Secret models, or sunsets, will be able to help us with what we all really need saving from–death–is sheer nonsense.

However…

There is beauty in another sense.

“You are altogether beautiful, my dear. There is no flaw in you.”

About 2000 years ago, there was this man named Jesus, and while He wasn’t the hunkiest or handsomest guy, He lived a perfect, flawless, beautiful life.

Isaiah 53:2-5 describes Him like this:

He had no appearance or form that we should look upon Him,
    nor any beauty that we should desire Him.
 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
    He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

But surely He has carried our pain
    and borne our suffering,
yet we considered Him smitten,
    stricken by God, and afflicted.
But He was pierced for our transgressions,
    He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on Him,
    and by His wounds we are healed.

In John 19:30, Jesus, hanging on a cross, lifted up His head and cried out in a loud voice,

“It is finished.”

The end.

The punishment for our peace–our eternal salvation–was upon Him and by His wounds, we are healed.

Oh dear friends.

The fact of the matter is we don’t need to wait on beauty–true and utter flawlessness–to save the world because He already has.

He already has.

And to prove it, He rose from the dead, demonstrating that the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not get the final say in the end.

To death and decay, those who are in Christ get to say,

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

I can say from experience, friends, Jesus is truly the way, the truth, and the life, and there’s nothing better or more beautiful than knowing Him.

And just in case you think because Jesus wasn’t hunky God has no aesthetic sense, 1 Corinthians 2:9 says,

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no heart has conceived that which God has prepared for those that love Him.”

So…

To the resolution “Beauty will save the world,” I’d say again.

He already has.

And, friends.

If you don’t know Jesus–my dearest Father, my closest Friend, the most beautiful Person who has ever lived–it would be my honor and privilege to introduce you to Him.

Drop me a line if you’re interested 🙂

And until then, I leave with an excerpt from one of my favorite songs “Gloryland.”

We’ll need no sun in Gloryland
The moon and stars won’t shine
For Christ himself is light up there
He reigns of love divine
Then weep not friends
I’m going home
Up there we’ll die no more
No coffins will be made up there
No graves on that bright shore