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Houston Christian University | November 14, 2024

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Raised with Beauty

Raised with Beauty

| On Jan 22, 2013

Jerusha Clark writes about her father’s music and love of beauty (The Examined Life, January 2013)

Growing up, I was taught in word and by example that Truth, Goodness, and Beauty mattered.  They were not mere concepts to discuss, though that we certainly did. These terms became incarnate in our home, weaving in and through our meals and board games, our Christmas caroling and impassioned arguments. I would not trade my upbringing for the proverbial world.

From my mother I learned of discernment, growing in the knowledge of Truth through both the study of God’s Word and the manifestation of His truth in science and history, in relationships and even in the ideas of some “non believers” who my friends’ parents were either too afraid or just too darn conservative to embrace.

My dad taught me to delight in the goodness of a long walk, an unhurried meal (appetizer, entrée and dessert, please), and a laugh…especially over ridiculously obtuse British comedies or puns that might cause others to glance askance.

And from both my parents, I learned to love, crave, and seek Beauty. Ah, Beauty.

My parents shunned expensive (even clean) cars in order to buy original artwork or schlep the four of us—sometimes grumbling—kids to a Brahms or Copland symphony. They paid for classical ballet and piano lessons, gifts I didn’t appreciate for many years. They read aloud to us for hours on end, weeping over visions of The Grey Havens or Aslan’s country. They took us on a twenty-eight day tour of Europe, introducing me to Michelangelo’s Pieta and Brunelleschi’s Florentine duomo. All of this, they taught me, spoke of a deeper magic than what my eyes could take in or my heart could sing. Christ was Beauty and Beauty was Christ.

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