25 Ways to Cultivate a Love For Beauty
God is truly Beauty, friends. He's left His fingerprints across creation, including us! I don't think I can truly ever stress how important it is for our spiritual development to engage with and cultivate beauty in our lives. Just as we strive for virtue and pursue truth, we also need to cultivate a love and appreciation for beauty in order to know God better.
But where to even begin in cultivating that love for beauty? How does that look? I'm still learning, but below is a list that I've compiled of 25 different things you can do pretty easily to cultivate a love for beauty in your daily life. Pick one, invite the Lord to enter into it, and go do it!
Take a phone-free walk in nature.
Ask God for the grace to appreciate His beauty in whoever you sit next to in church.
Listen to “O Magnum Mysterium” by Morten Lauridsen. It's an absolutely stunning choral setting of a text about the birth of Christ.
Read Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem “As Kingfishers Catch Fire.” You might want to read it a few times slowly, but it's worth taking the time to contemplate.
Read Psalm 23 & really allow your mind to enter into it. What would this setting look like? What do those still waters & green pastures look like? What is on the table the Lord has set before you? How does the Lord protecting you & caring for you make you feel?
Put your phone away for an hour and write a letter to someone.
Spend some time in front of the tabernacle & be with Beauty Himself.
Go to chartrescathedral.net and read about/look at pictures of one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world.
Listen to the song "Underground" by Cody Fry. The lyrics are a metaphor, so take a moment to ponder the lyrics!)
Bake some scones, make a pot of tea, get out a good book, and enjoy some teatime this afternoon. If you have a fancy teacup, use that! Bonus: invite a family member or two, or your roommate to join you & share in the simple beauty of teatime!
The next time you meet someone, look at their eyes & appreciate the beauty of God within them.
Watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy (or re-watch it). If you've never seen it before, it's a treat for the eyes, the ears, the intellect, and the imagination. Need I say more?
Create space in your closet & give away clothes you don't wear anymore. Space is necessary for beauty to flourish.
Bring nature into your bedroom & introduce a few plants into your decor. Succulents and cacti are easy to care for if you're terrified that you'll kill any plants you get!
If no. 13 is really too much and you do genuinely kill every plant that you attempt to care for, then buy or pick a bouquet of flowers and put them on your dresser or nightstand. They'll last a few days so long as you put them in water!
Offer up the next thing that inconveniences or annoys you for the person causing the inconvenience or annoyance. Redemptive suffering is beautiful, because we can help others along to Heaven when we offer up our suffering for them.
Read the prologue to the Gospel of John (John 1:1-18) and take delight in the beauty of these words.
Listen to the track “Under the Stars” from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader soundtrack.
Make your bed every morning when you get up. From a theological and philosophical perspective, order is actually a component of beauty. It's not the only component by any means, but it is a component.
Pick a night this week/weekend that you can slow down and make a nourishing, home-cooked meal. Enjoy the process. Take time to taste the flavors and appreciate the smells as you create a meal that will be enjoyable to eat while at the same time support your overall health, because treating your body with dignity is a way to honor the beauty of you – a creation of God.
Look at – like really look at – some religious artwork. You can find them on Google! Some ideas to get you started: Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper, Jean-Francois Millet's The Angelus, Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, and Caravaggio's The Calling of St. Matthew. Take in the beauty & savor it.
Start reading the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis! Or, if you've already read them but haven't read any of his other work, pick up his Space Trilogy.
Say the Angelus at noon. It takes approximately 90 seconds and is a beautiful way to remember Mary's fiat, her yesthat changed the world!
Listen to this beautiful orchestral arrangement of Claude Debussy's lovely piano work, Clair de Lune.
If your local parish offers Eucharistic adoration, go drop in and spend even a few minutes in the Lord's presence! He is Beauty Himself.
I hope this list can be of some help to you in some way. May God bless you as you continue your walk with Him.
