"Beauty" includes all that God has done throughout salvation history, throughout the life of the Church, and in our own lives up to now. "Beauty First" is another way of saying, "Pay attention to theophany." And where do you most readily find theophany? The list is not brief, especially when you multiply the particular instances of nature and good art, as well as liturgy, Holy Scripture, pilgrimage, saints' lives, hymnography, Church art and architecture (indeed, all the ecclesiastical arts, including incense and vestment making), family, friendships, romantic love, and so on. But do we approach these sources as if they were beautiful and fall in love with them? Or have we lost that wonder from our lives?
How do we cultivate this?
This takes experience and training. And one form of training comes from just being immersed in the Tradition. Tradition is a record of prior theophany, of Beauty, and a living Tradition is able to re-present that Beauty to us. As we enter that current and learn to swim in it, we learn what is real Beauty and what is false.
When a child is raised in the Church in a healthy way, what he has above all is an unshakable sense of how Orthodoxy "tastes." He grows up knowing the theological aesthetic of the Church, and this will carry a person most of the way home if he is faithful to it. This is part of what Dostoevsky meant when he said that "Beauty will save the world." He was talking about the saving power to an adult of the memory of attending Presanctified Liturgy as a child.
We start with eros and the willingness to fall in love but also with the readiness to have our eros purified through fasting. When we begin with Beauty, we make Chastity and Unknowing our first allies and friends."
Dr Timothy Patitsas, The Ethics of Beauty
