Beauty as both Means and End

Bishop Robert Baron, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, recently gave a talk on “Beauty,” one of the finest talks I’ve heard in quite some time (see below--it's worth a listen).  In a relativistic culture that is hardened or hostile to any claims of "Truth," Baron argues that introducing people to the beautiful softens the soil.  Beauty works its “alchemy” on the soul, opening that person to new possibilities, and ultimately, to the transcendent beauty of God. 

Lead with the beautiful.  Baron remembers the first major league baseball game he attended when he was a young boy. It was a night game, and the green grass, the gleaming white uniforms of the home team, the fluidity and grace of the players, all had a profound effect on him, so much that he began playing  baseball,  something he continued until his older teenage years. As he played more, he became more interested in the nuances of the game, including arcane rules such as the “in-field fly rule.”

What would have happened, Baron asks, if his first exposure to the game as a boy was that the coach sat him down to explain the in-field fly rule? Would he have fallen in love with the game? Of course not.  It was the beauty of the game that first drew him to learning how to play, and as he played, he deepened in his knowledge and love of the game, prompting his desire to understand the rules. 

I was thinking about this during my recent trip with my wife to the “South Rim” of the Grand Canyon. Though it’s a national park, there were swarms of people there from other nations, all speaking their own language, reminding me of the  time I spent in Times Square in Manhattan. But all of us, regardless of our nationality or religious persuasion, had a similarly profound experience, mesmerized by the beauty of it all. We walked up and down the rim, so that we could view the expanse from different angles. We took pictures and panoramic videos.  We stood there, looking out,  breathing it in, silently. Words couldn’t really do it justice.

Beauty is not, Baron reminds us, “in the eye of the beholder.” True beauty, objective beauty, is more than a subjective experience; rather, when we come across something that is truly beautiful, it  re-arranges and redirects our subjective sensibilities toward something greater, something more. Be it the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, a musical masterpiece, a work of art, what is truly beautiful reaches out and grabs us, shakes us, forces us to think beyond ourselves, giving us a “taste” of something which is even more beautiful, almost impossible to imagine in the abstract. 

C.S. Lewis says it this way: “We do not want merely to see beauty... we want something else which can hardly be put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses, and nymphs and elves.”

Arguing theology or creed is something that may be of interest down the line, but it’s not theology that prompts us to draw closer to God. No one cares about the infield fly rule until he’s fallen in love with baseball. 

God, as Creator,  has given us the Grand Canyon. Our Church must do its part, through its architecture, religious iconography, music, rituals and sacraments, so that what is implicitly attractive becomes, over time, an explicit assent to He who is Ultimate Beauty. 

Awe-Inspiring

There are three times I can remember being overcome with awe and wonder. The first time, I was about eight years old, when my aunt took me to Niagara Falls. The intense power of the water pouring over the falls left such an emotional impression on me that I can almost feel it 50 years later. The second time was in Rome, at St. Peter’s Cathedral.  I had been chosen to do a brief lecture for the group I was with, but when I walked inside the Cathedral for the first time—the size of it, the beauty of it, the significance of it—I was rendered speechless.

The third time was last week, when my wife and I traveled to see the Grand Canyon for the first time. I’d seen a lot of pictures, watched a number of T.V. shows, heard many people talk about it. But walking to the edge of the “rim,” and looking outward at the vast expanse, stopped me in my tracks. Perhaps it was the three dimensional perspective that no book or description can convey, perhaps it was the sheer beauty of the cliffs and rocks, or maybe it was the vertigo I felt as I looked straight down, almost a mile below, but I was overwhelmed with awe in a way that’s only happened to me twice before. 

My take-away from these three very different but  similar experiences is the same: It’s almost impossible, confronted with absolute beauty of such magnitude, to be an atheist.  

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the work of his hands,” says the Psalmist (Psalm 19:1). 

Amen! 

Divided We Fall.... A Modest Proposal for Private and Public Schools in the A.H.S.A.A.

I read today that St. Paul is suing the Alabama High School Athletic Association because of the Association's newly minted “competitive balance” policy--an attempt to keep a fragile coalition of public and private schools in the same athletic league. Private schools which have been successful in certain sports over a three year period are moved up a classification to play larger schools. This is in addition to a 1.35 multiplier that was instituted for private schools in 1999, already bumping them up one classification. So St. Paul, 4A in size without the additional penalties, will be playing at the 6A level in 15 sports next year, including football.

The lawsuit in a federal court alleges the “competitive balance” rule is “motivated by a bare desire to harm and disadvantage a politically unpopular group” and that playing up two divisions puts their athletes in harm's way.

I have no idea if the lawsuit will be successful. But if it is, the A.H.S.A.A. will be under tremendous pressure to remodel itself after the state of Tennessee, which years ago separated the public and private schools into two distinct leagues, each competing for its own championship. I think that would be a dreadful mistake for Alabama.

I’ve been a Catholic school principal for 29 years in three high schools, two in Alabama (Montgomery Catholic High from 1989-2008 and St. Michael Catholic High, 2015-present) and one in Tennessee (Pope John Paul in Nashville, TN, from 2008-2015) . Being a “private school” principal in both states gives me some perspective.

During my tenure at Catholic, we played at the 2A and 3A level against many wonderful, rural public schools, such as Holtville, Reeltown and Elmore County. There were times they womped us, and at other times, we competed and beat them. But over the years, with them hosting us and us hosting them, we grew in mutual respect for each other. I remember one particular Friday night when we visited Holtville (in Slapout!) for a basketball game. The people there were warm and gracious hosts, happy to receive us, representing the best in southern hospitality. The whole town was there, cheering on their boys, led at that time by the Ezell brothers. They killed us that night, but that wasn’t my biggest takeaway. I remembered how run down their school building was, and how that contrasted so powerfully with the pride and joy that community had in their school. Because of that experience, I voted for property tax increases for public schools the next time it was on the ballot.

Contrast that with my time in Tennessee, which separated private and public schools twenty years ago. My school, John Paul II,  competed at the “Division II, 2A” level, which was the “large private school” division. Our regular opponents were Baylor, McCallie, Brentwood Academy, Ensworth, MBA and the like.  They each charge well over $20,000 year for tuition, and their facilities are breathtakingly beautiful (see pictures below). During my seven year stint as headmaster of JPII, traveling to support our teams, I never had to walk into a Holtville, never had to “compare/contrast” our facilities with those who had less. Neither did our parents. We moved in entirely different circles.

Baylor School, Chattanooga

Give the civil rights heroes in our great state their due. Credit the Christian Churches for their role. But I believe the institution that has done more to advance the cause of civil rights and the normalization of black-white, rich-poor relationships in Alabama is the Alabama High School Athletic Association. It connects communities that otherwise simply wouldn’t be connected. It humanizes relationships that would otherwise be faceless abstractions.

New natatorium, Ensworth HS (Nashville)

If we divorce ourselves from each other, it will be a great step backwards for our state.

Still, I am sympathetic to the “political” problem confronting the AHSAA—namely, that a majority of its members believe that the private schools cheat, by offering scholarships to athletes to enroll in their school. I don’t want to debate that point, except to say that successful programs generally attract good athletes to join them, be that at St. Paul, Madison Academy, Hoover or Mountainbrook.

The dining hall, Montgomery Bell Academy (Nashville)

Here’s what I’d suggest instead: If indeed, programs “recruit” athletes and then offer them financial aid as inducements, then the percentages of athletes on financial aid would be greatly disproportionate to the general school population. On eligibility rosters submitted to the AHSAA for each team and signed by principals, then, the AHSAA could simply ask the principal to declare what percentage of that team was on financial aid, and what percentage of the student body was on financial aid. Those two percentages should not, on average,  vary wildly. If they did over a couple of year period (to allow for statistical anomalies) that could become a “trigger” for the AHSAA to investigate the program more closely or to penalize that school for continued incongruities in its financial aid practices.

I don’t think the AHSAA wants to penalize schools for giving aid, as that policy harms needy families, discriminating in favor of the wealthy, who don’t need it. But it’s perfectly reasonable for the AHSAA to expect that its schools treat athletes as they would the rest of their student body.