Transcendent beauty

Pondering this today ::

"Can we study beauty with out studying God?’ Is it possible to study a subject freighted with transcendence without reference to the Transcendent?” - Jonathan Edwards

Breakfast at Tiffany's

I am a classic movie buff. Turner Classic Movies is most assuredly the television station I watch more than any other. Alfred Hitchcock. Edith Head. Jimmy Stewart. Gene Kelly. Grace Kelly. No matter how many movies I add to my personal repetoire, everytime I am fortunate enough to spend the evening the with Breakfast at Tiffany's, I undoubtedly return to the conclusion that it is indeed my favorite movie. Though sometimes reticent about this fact...it seems such a trite choice...I do feel I have just reason for favoring it above all others.

Ok...Givenchy and Edith Head on costumes, Audrey Hepburn as the lead, New York City as the setting, and Tiffany's as the destination of choice...these are enough superficial flourishes to fill my superficial fancies. But my love for this movie goes much deeper. Holly Golightly is every girl and every girl is Holly Golightly. We are all "phonies," but we are "real phonies." We all sometimes come down with a case of the "mean reds."

The more intently I contemplate her story, the more I see a shadow of my own. This story is in no way a picture of virtue and I do not mean to compare God to a "kept" man; however, I do resonate with how Paul "Fred Baby" Varjack patiently loves this wild thing, who tries so desperately to run after everything but the one thing she truly desires...love.

You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other..." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.-- Paul to Holly

I see myself in Holly...trying so hard to run away from my own worst enemy...me...only to have this "wild thing" patiently loved by an amazing and holy God. Everytime I watch Holly face her moment of surrender and step out of the cab, humbly accepting that she does in fact need the "no name slob" cat and the love of Paul "Fred Baby," I am always in awe of the grace of God to pursue after a "wild thing" like me...to free me from the cage I so arduously toiled to build myself.

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."--1John 4:9