Editorial: Ugly in one hand, beauty in the other

I was transported this morning. Not by aliens. By classical music.

Specifically, by a high school orchestra playing “Winton Suite for String Orchestra: Prelude” by Adam Carse and “30,000 and Forever” by Brian Balmages.

I’ve listened to recordings of these two songs this afternoon, but, well, you just had to be there, and I’m glad I was.

Like so many others, I’ve carried—and still carry—the weight of the times. There’s a lot of ugliness in the world today. And work. My, there’s a lot of work. And stress. Lord, the stress.

I walked into the performance hall with my wife, and we sat down moments before the orchestra started. Carse’s “Prelude,” helped by the venue and the dimmed lights, pulled me away from the weight, the work and the stress with its energy and cheerfulness.

“30,000 and Forever,” on the other hand, was beauty of another kind, opening my mind to the tension of our time, during which we hold ugliness in one hand and beauty in the other.

Mourning and rejoicing

As I listened, the sound of the strings washing over me like rippling waves on a peaceful shore, I felt at once the beauty of the music and the sorrow of those who don’t have an hour free from the ugliness of our world—war, hunger, terror, enslavement and the like—for a musical reprieve.

I sat, taking in the full force of Balmages’ adagio, reveling and mourning at the same time—reveling in the skill of high school students to produce such a wonder, mourning that Ukrainian high school students study in basements, if they can even go to school at all.

And it’s not just Ukraine. It’s wherever the scourge of war touches our planet.

I lament that beauty is a luxury in our world.

But I also marvel that there is beauty at all.

This is the tension we hold.

I didn’t know until this afternoon when I searched the web for “30,000 and Forever” that what I felt as I listened to the music was the story behind it.

According to Balmages’ program notes on the score, “the original musical ideas for this piece [came to him] during a flight to Australia.” His son had been “in and out of the hospital” and was able to come home “just a few days before [Balmages] had to leave on a 2-week trip.”

I remember being a young dad and having to leave young children. I am thankful I didn’t have to leave one who was so sick.

Balmages wrote: “The thought of leaving them in that instant tore me apart. I will never forget what it felt like to hug them goodbye.”

His composition tells the story well. And with amazing beauty.

Being parted from those we love is one of the ugliest things I know, and it points to one of the most beautiful things I know—the hope of eternal reunion.

The curse and the hope

We live in the middle of the story, between the ugliness and the beauty, between the brokenness of our Fall and the promise of our being created anew.

Until we live in the end of the story, as long as we live in the middle, we must hold the ugliness in one hand and the beauty in the other.

We cannot look away from either one. Certainly, not yet, not until all ugliness in the world has been redeemed by God’s beauty. We also must not focus on one to the exclusion of the other. To do so is to deny the truth of the world in which we live, a world that, at present, contains ugliness and beauty at once.

And we must do more than hold the tension. We must take up the work given to us as followers of Jesus—the ministry of reconciliation:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.

“And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors” (2 Corinthians 5:17-20).

Glimpses of beauty in the rough

Acknowledging the ugly consequences of our sin and brokenness also means we must pursue justice—God’s righteousness—in our world. And we do well to celebrate moves toward such justice.

Beauty at church

For example, churches place classified ads with us when seeking ministers and staff, and we pray with these churches throughout their search. Yesterday, one of those churches told me they will baptize a 10-year-old and her mother this coming Sunday.

This evening, they sent me an update that her dad will also be baptized. There is beauty in a family making this commitment together.

This church is experiencing numerical and spiritual growth even while seeking a full-time pastor. And they’re not the only church experiencing this. This is noteworthy and cause for celebration, because many churches feel like they can’t or won’t grow when they don’t have a pastor.

With or without a pastor, every church has God’s Spirit, the true growth agent.

Beauty in politics

Amid the often-ugly world of politics, there is a spot of beauty in a bipartisan effort to protect young women by combatting revenge porn. The bill, known as the “Take It Down Act” is sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Reps. Maria Salazar, R-Fla., and Madeleine Dean, D-Pa.; and is championed by First Lady Melania Trump.

“The bill would make it a federal crime to knowingly publish or threaten to publish intimate imagery online without an individual’s consent, including realistic, computer-generated intimate images of people who can be identified,” the Associated Press reports.

“Social media platforms would have 48 hours to remove such images and take steps to delete duplicate content after a victim’s request,” the report continues.

The U.S. Senate passed the bill. Now, Speaker Mike Johnson needs to schedule the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the middle of the story, where we hold the ugly in one hand and the beautiful in the other, we must celebrate beauty wherever we find it—while continuing to pursue God’s justice and the work of reconciliation.

A treat for those who read to the end

Maybe you read this editorial with a hundred other things going on at the same time. Hopefully, one of them wasn’t driving. Maybe you know all too well the tension of holding weight, work and worry in one hand and beauty and joy in the other.

Whatever the case, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve found a treat.

Amy Gross, director of Plano West Senior High School’s nonvarsity orchestra shared with me the audio recordings of their UIL performance this morning.

If the only place you can find a little peace right now is in the bathroom, take a few minutes, close the door and soak in the sound of a superb high school string orchestra.

• “Winton Suite for String Orchestra: Prelude” by Adam Carse
• “30,000 and Forever” by Brian Balmages. His composition was commissioned by the V.R. Eaton High School Orchestra in Haslet (Holly Burton, conductor) to honor their first graduating class.
• “Perseus” by Soon Hee Newbold

Thank you to Amy and her students for adding beauty to a world that desperately needs it.

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Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.