WHY NATURE CONNECTS US TO GOD

'The reason why we so often feel closer to God in nature is because nature is specifically designed to bring us close to God.'

Seth Lewis, The Language of Rivers and Stars, p.151.

BEAUTY & TRUTH

'We often hear it said that all truth is God's truth. By the same token, we might also say that all beauty is God's beauty...'

Alastair Gordon, Why Art Matters, p.78.

GOD IS BEAUTY

'God is Beauty, who made all the beauties that pierce our hearts, from the burning autumn moon in rags of black cloud to the laughter of the woman you love. He does not want you to reject beauty. The beauties God has made can remind your intellect of, and prepare your heart to encounter, their Creator. He is beauty's climax and crescendo.'

Eve Tushnet, Tenderness, p.169.

WALKING ADVERTS

'A Christian is a mini-advertisement for divine beauty.'
Dane C Ortlund, Edwards on the Christian Life, p.30.

WHO ALL BEAUTY REFLECTS

'All the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation, is but the reflection of the diffused beams of that Being.' 

Jonathan Edwards in Dane C Ortlund, Edwards on the Christian Life, p.27.

CHRISTIAN BEAUTIFICATION

'Christian living is participation in God, in "the supreme loveliness of his nature". And if what defines God supremely is his beauty or loveliness or excellency, then to participate in the triune life of God is to be swept up into, and to exude that heavenly resplendence. A Christian is one who id being beatified.' 

Jonathan Edwards in Julian Hardyman, Jesus, Lover of My Soul, p.146.

WHERE BEAUTY TAKES YOU

'It was the upward-reaching and fathomlessly hungering, heart-breaking love for the beauty of the world at its most beautiful and beyond that, for that beauty east of the sun and west of the moon which is past the reach of all but our most desperate desiring and is finally the beauty of Beauty itself, of Being itself and what lies at the heart of Being.' 

Frederick Buechner, A Sacred Journey, p.52.

THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS

'As the beauty of the divine nature primarily consist in God's holiness, so does the beauty of divine things. Herein consists the beauty of the saints, that they are saints, or holy ones: it is the moral image of God in them, which is their beauty; and that is their holiness.' 

Jonathan Edwards in Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ, p.178. 

THE POWER OF ART

'...the greater the art's beauty, the greater the sense of yearning it evokes.' 

Frank Burch Brown in Belden C Lane, Ravished by Beauty, p.193. 

DESPOILING CREATION

'...it is a sin to make ugly what God has created for the purpose of reflecting and sharing God's beauty.' 

Belden C Lane, Ravished by Beauty, p.172.