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This is reflected in Nature. I may see a lovely blossom. Awe may arise at this sight. Yet, the blossom leads me to the Life before the blossom, in which the blossom and I live. If I try to cling to the sense of beauty on seeing the blossom, the sense will drop, for it will not allow me to grasp it. Again, the Sacred will not be subject to our conquest. Our response is humble gratitude, thankful love.
Likewise, I have referred elsewhere to the late Thomas Merton noting that there is a center to everyone that no one can enter. The appearance of person can be the means of our seeing and being in awe of the beauty in the other, but the Sacred Itself is that which occupies the center. So, we cannot claim the beauty of another for ourselves, we, rather, bow in spirit before that Mystery that arises in the luminous presence of the other. This is why sexual objectification of others, including sex crimes, is a violation of the Holy. This appears in rape, for rape is the violation of this Sacred-within, through the irreverence of the body and personhood of another. Sexual crimes, expressions of conquest, are assaults on God. These crimes evidence a loss of awe, a loss of respect for the Sacred of and in the other, as well as in the self.
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Always beauty is within the encounter that evokes awe. Without the quality of beauty, no wonder would arise. Simone Weil rightly sees beauty as a means by which the Source summons us into Itself. In "Love of Beauty," Weil writes:
The soul's natural inclination to love beauty is the trap God most frequently uses in order to win it and open it to the breath from on high.…
The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth [to God]. The unwary individual who on entering takes a few steps is soon unable to find the opening. Worn out, with nothing to eat or drink, in the dark, separated from his dear ones, and from everything he loves and is accustomed to, he walks on without knowing anything or hoping anything, incapable even of discovering whether he is really going forward or merely turning round on the same spot. But this affliction is as nothing compared with the danger threatening him. For if he does not lose courage, if he goes on walking, it is absolutely certain that he will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth. And there God is waiting to eat him. Later he will go out again, but he will be changed, he will have become different, after being eaten and digested by God. Afterward he will stay near the entrance so that he can gently push all those who come near into the opening.
Hence, awe is not our constant experience, and it may be an infrequent one. And this awfulness, possibly mixed with vague dread, ushers us into oneness with the Divine. In the Beloved, the Beloved seizes us. The One seduces us, for the oneness of the One within wants to capture and reunite us with Itself, even while we fear the consequences of this fortunate captivity. Ironically, Weil turns around the Eucharist, wherein worshippers claim to eat God, and, here, God eats us.
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