Beauty. Such an interesting topic. It is a topic everyone has an opinion about, and all opinions are that we want more beauty in our lives. As we said last week, beauty is food for the soul. In fact, true beauty is said to be so personal and so transcendent that talking or writing about it seems to do them a great injustice and tarnishes their radiant glow. Perhaps it is because, as John-Mark Miravalle explains, beauty affirms balance, order, and a longing for the transcendent. Thomas Aquinas was keen on this. He once wrote, “Nature is nothing other than a certain kind of art, namely God’s art.” This is why there is often a haunting loneliness when experiencing true beauty; our soul longs for the transcendent Artist of all the beauty we see. Human beings have a personal moral obligation toward beauty’s creation and preservation because of linking beauty with the transcendent. We know this because nothing evil can be beautiful. Think about it. Can a beautiful evil be conceived? Nor does evil bring serenity, peace, or anything humans long for. And if it did, it would immediately cease to be beautiful because it was ugly from the start. That is why beauty is a common ground between believers and skeptical unbelievers like Michael. Michael appreciates and loves beauty just as much as the ardent Christian. Miravalle explains that “we believe in objective standards of goodness and morality. In other words, beauty isn’t just a preference.”