The Beauty of God, plus a few other things.

Having just read Edward T. Oakes' article "Eyes of Faith" in this week's Christian Century, I am at once glad to see the way he expresses seeing God through beauty and awed by his thorough (if a little dense) wording of it. I'll definately try to get the book.
Maybe it's the Wordsworth, Lewis, or Norman Maclean I've read, but I think that the overwhelming beauty of this world, whether it be in nature or in the human spirit expressed through art or music, is evidence of a higher power, a Being omnipresent in our lives. This Being, God, I have imagined as a substance of love, of power, and of incredible beauty. Oakes' article, and Treier's book that it is based upon, has the same view. Evidently Plato had something of it too.
How can you help but sense a transcendant force when you step into a flowing clear river, or see the mountains smoke below gray skies? When you hold in your hand a speckled trout, just caught, still breathing in and out in a miracle of existence? When you hear a hymn sung by a voice that puts such passion and authenticity into it, or better still a whole choir? Those things attract a piece of me that I define as my soul, and they attract them in their own way to the Divine that is breathing beauty through them.
But, enough preaching. The book sounds good. There's another one advertised in there about Amish kids in the "running around" years that I'll look for, too.

Completely unrelated, bvut reading James Agee hasn't helped my desire for everyone to go back to dressing like they did in the 20's.
I want my vest and fedora!