a tiger and his six-year-old - Part I

There is a Calvin and Hobbes comic that touches on an important concept. If I remember correctly from my bathroom reading, the first picture is of Calvin having recently caught a butterfly in a glass jar. The second frame Hobbes somberly comments "If people could put rainbows in zoo's, they'd do it". The third frame is of Calvin with a delightful smile, holding an empty glass jar high in the air and the butterfly fluttering away to freedom.

I have learned a few things from my times with this unlikely pair, but this is one of the most profound illustrations that has left an impression on me.

I think it is true that when we find a good thing we are often times tempted to duplicate it or contain it in hopes of preserving the beauty we experience with it. We certainly do this with physical things... we recreate cheaper versions of beautiful art in hopes of spreading it to a wider audience, we record and distribute beautiful pieces of music at ease, we go to a restaurant chain that serves the same spectrum of food whether you are in Nairobi, Panama City, or Minneapolis.

We duplicate and distribute beauty freely...

...but...

...in doing so, have we lost our true appreciation of what is beautiful?

There was a time where you could not hang the Mona Lisa on your wall.

There was a time where Beethoven's 5th could only be experienced in a packed music hall.

There was a time when Curry could not be found in Minnesota.

It is hard for me to believe that I have the same appreciation for these expressions of art and beauty that I would if they were not readily available to me. It is extremely easy for us to lose our respect and cheapen our experience because of our abundance.

It is not so much that we have put a rainbow in a zoo. Rather, we have decided to make artificial rainbows and have them available every minute of every day to whoever can afford them. We didn't put the butterfly in a jar... we just made a cheaper version of the butterfly and flooded our streets with an overabundance of them.

love.

If we did this with music, art, and food.. do you really think that we would limit ourselves to simply replicate and cheapen the physically beautiful pieces of life...

Have we decided not to do this with the heart of true beauty, but limited it only to the work of our hands?

I would argue that we have not limited it at all.

The physical manifestations of this idea are very apparent, but the emotional and spiritual impacts are just as real, and we will talk about those in my next blog.