The monastery’s theme for 2022 is beauty. Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamozov: “The world will be saved by beauty.” The first image that came to me as I pondered this was that of Vedran Smajlovic playing Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor in the bombed streets of Sarajevo in 1992. He played each day for 22 days to mark the death of the 22 people killed standing in line for bread during the siege of the city. Hear the story from BBC news.   

Beauty can keep the human heart and spirit alive in the midst of suffering. The PBS Newshour on March 7, 2022, reported on ways this is happening in Ukraine in the midst of the bombing. A young girl sings “Let It Go,” the theme song from Frozen, for her shelter mates. Outside the Lviv train station, a piano is set up, and a young woman plays “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong as people fleeing their homes wait in line to buy tickets.  

In a basement bomb shelter in Kharkiv, the violinist, Vera Lytochenko, plays for the eleven others in the shelter. Lytochenko, called the “cellar violinist” has posted her concerts on social media where thousands of people in Ukraine watch. “Many people text me now saying that my videos give them such support and hope. They can see that someone stays here [in Kharkiv]. Someone is alive and someone keeps hope and is optimistic.” 

In speaking about the Way of Beauty (Via Pulcritudinus) initiative by Pope Benedict XVI, Elizabeth Lev, professor of art history at Duquesne University, said Pope Benedict noted that “beauty wounds.” It creates a little opening where the Holy Spirit can get in.

I have experienced that wounding of beauty, that opening, as a moment of awe, of mercy and grace. For me, that wounding of beauty often comes with tears. The first time I entered the empty assembly room after the monastery building was completed, I was touched by the beauty of its simplicity. It felt like a sacred space, and I was moved to tears. I felt embraced by the Holy. Perhaps you who are parents have experienced this at the birth of a child. We might experience this in nature or in witnessing courage in the midst of suffering. 

It is said that wherever there is Truth, Beauty and Goodness, there is God. These days, people are experiencing quite a bit of despair, hopelessness, fear, hatred, meaninglessness. Beauty can save us. The beauty of the Olympic athletes captivated our attention even in the midst of political tension. The beauty of the murals on the plywood boarding up the windows on State Street in Madison, WI showed the hope of the human spirit for an equitable world after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis in May 2020.  

Lia Howard writes: “It is brave to create beauty where there is fear and it may just save someone else” (11/2/2020 blog). This Lent, I invite you to include in your prayer one beautiful thing or encounter that catches your attention. Spend time with it; let it touch your heart and create a little opening in you. Stay with that moment. How does the Spirit move in you? How might you share it with others? 

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St Cloud Symphony Orchestra

Music filled the darkened performance hall. An attentive hush fell over the audience as the lush strains of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E minor drew us together in wonder, a fellowship of listeners. For a few brief and precious moments, all of these strangers in a room made up one marvelous whole, separate but together, rooted in place yet soaring at the same time.

Eduard Zilberkant

It was Saturday night, and Sister Tammy Shoemaker from Saint Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, MN and I were treating ourselves to an evening out with the St Cloud Symphony Orchestra. As we took our seats in the concert hall, I was surprised to recognize some of the musicians in the orchestra: one of the Saint John’s monks in the cello section; one of my spiritual directees among the violins. As the music began, the guest conductor, Eduard Zilberkant, nearly lifted off the dais as he swung his arms and body to the passionate swells of Rachmaninoff’s muscular composition.

At the close of the concert, an enthusiastic standing ovation marked the gratitude of everyone in the room. It had been an especially inspiring and nourishing evening for me, during a time in which I have felt both helpless and hopeless about our ability to find unity in the midst of our differences.

The days leading up to presidential elections have felt crazy-making. The ratcheting levels of hysteria, fear, despair and outright predictions of apocalypse from both sides of the aisle has made it difficult to take in media coverage. For better or worse, this election cycle has revealed deep-seated, oozing wounds in this country which will require time and determined skill to heal. It doesn’t help that the often brutal and broad rhetorical brushes with which we paint one another mostly serves to build walls that seem insurmountable.

But on Saturday night, it suddenly crossed my mind that the auditorium was filled with all kinds of people—people who probably do not agree on most things—and yet for those brief moments in a concert hall were bound together by a force greater than any one of us could generate on our own.

There is a kind of fellowship that beauty unfailingly inspires. I have seen it happen over and over, but the miracle of it has struck me anew in this season. Knitted together in wonder, our human defenses seem to fall away in the disarming presence of beauty. What is it about music that creates community out of strangers?

Bill Cahoy

As part of my work this fall, I’ve begun a graduate assistantship with Professor Bill Cahoy, Director of the Lilly Community Fellowship Program and former dean of Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary. The Lilly project is bringing together academics, pastors and community leaders who have been pioneers in community and congregational development. One of the most surprising things I’ve observed in our gatherings has been the power of beauty to draw a group together. One group of professionals started and ended by spontaneously singing the old African American spiritual, “Guide my feet, Lord, while I run this race.”

Acapella, their voices had a poignancy and vulnerability that surpassed the prayers we had prepared on paper for the meeting. Another group of pastors spent time talking about the role of creativity, music, art and beautiful space in supporting congregational life, and the detracting influence of its opposite: trite music, cheap art, shabby space. The passion and insight these pastors displayed in service of their communities continues to inspire me to my own work and calling.

These graced moments give me hope. To be where community forms, however fleeting and brief, is something to celebrate. In a season when I can easily give into depression and hopelessness about our divisions, I cannot risk forgetting the enduring power of beauty to bring us together.
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Read other blog posts from Sister Rosy in her series, Letters home.

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