Meaning and Authenticity

I started an Evening Prayer service at my church last week. It's in the tradition of Taize. Just a 25 minute service. I set it up in the chapel, which has some beautiful stained glass windows, and put about 100 candles of all shapes and sizes. We sing three Taize songs, do intercessory prayer, silence, two Scripture readings using three different translations, and I decided to serve each person communion. As the service ended tonight, I just sat there for about 10 minutes all alone. I kept thinking, God is real. God is real. God is real. It's something about the beauty. God inhabits it and I can experience the divine so easily through it. Beauty.

Why is beauty so important? In my twenties I was hardly aware of it, my soul so full of fear, self-absorbed. As I began to heal, the context in which I lived and worked came into view. The harshness of the flueorescent lights under which I worked at the oil company suddenly weighed on me. I began to buy furniture and home decor that spoke to me of the difference the divine can make. I yearned for an environment, a context for living and working, that mirrored the opening toward which I felt myself drawn. Why is beauty so important?