Communicating with Beauty
Communicating with Beauty
In the book of Proverbs we’re told that “The right word spoken at the right time is as beautiful as gold apples in a silver bowl” (Prov. 25:11, NCV). Sometimes it feels like we need the wisdom of Solomon to find the “right” word, but it’s an effort worth making.
Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a prolific orator, famously said that a politician should campaign in poetry but govern in prose. I get his point, but I don’t think I agree.
Sometimes prose—just saying a thing plainly—fails to capture people’s imaginations and open the heart to something more.
“About the great events of life prose seems an inadequate means of expression,” James Sire wrote.1 To communicate—even to ourselves—about love, death, victory, defeat, things that matter, we search for words capable of engaging the heart. Hospitable communicators embrace this challenge. We do not just attempt to say a thing; we work hard to say it artfully. Beautifully.
Seth Godin gets at this in his unique way when he offers,
Our society is struggling because during times of change, the very last people you need on your team are well-paid bureaucrats, note takers, literalists, manual readers, TGIF laborers, map followers, and fearful employees. The compliant masses don’t help so much when you don’t know what to do next. . . . Some organizations haven’t realized this yet, or haven’t articulated it, but we need artists. Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done.2
He makes a distinction between a factory worker, who for me represents the prosaic past, and the artist, who represents the poetic future. A great example is the difference between a cook and a chef. The cook just follows a recipe to cook something. The chef digs deep into her soul and creates something beautiful. One works in prose. The other is a poet, an artist.
I remember the best hamburger I ever ate. Actually, that I ever experienced. My friend Dave Wright—or Super Dave, as his friends call him—hosted Sharon and me in a lovely home on the shores of Lake Michigan for a few memorable summer days several years ago. Dave is a chef by avocation. For pleasure he takes time off of his real job in vocational ministry to cook in five-star restaurants.
One evening we watched him cook a hamburger that was an absolute work of art. Really. I can no more explain how he did what he did than I can explain Picasso. But I do know that the final product was garnished with a slice of Granny Smith apple and a sauce of some angelic origin. Years later I can still see, smell, and taste that meal. We didn’t just eat it. We experienced it. This is what an artist does.
“Hospitable communicators are artists. We create experiences that convey beauty and stir hearts.”
The late Eugene Peterson is probably best known for his translation of the Bible, The Message. I have been most affected, however, by his observations on being a pastor, leader, writer, and speaker. His insights are a revelation for any leader who strives to be a hospitable communicator.
In his memoir, The Pastor, he wrote that he worked hard to “understand the sacred qualities of language.” He gave sage advice from his personal history as a communicator:
I started paying attention to poets and novelists and artists, the way they wrote about what they were doing as writers and musicians and painters, weavers and potters and sculptors. I made friends with the world of art, the work of the artist. I embraced artists as allies. They took a place alongside the theologians and biblical scholars in my formation: art as a school of pastoral formation, the pastor as artist. My artistic medium was words, written and prayed and preached.3
Again, hospitable communicators are artists.
To communicate beauty, we must fill our minds with the beautiful. To save ourselves from the boring prose of an unimaginative mind, we must explore the minds of those who stir up our imaginations—those who have created great books, poetry, paintings, pictures, movies.
“The older I get, the more I appreciate exploring the mind of God by immersing myself in the world He created.”
The apostle Paul said that we can get to know God through His creation. Oceans, mountains, sunsets, forests. To use Person’s beautifully crafted translation in Philippians 4, “Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”
We must fill our minds with the beautiful in order to artistically convey the beautiful.
As important as words are, though, we must also remember that communication is about much more than words. Ken Gire expressed that “words are often the least effective way of communicating.”4 Who can really describe the appearance or fragrance of a rose? You have to see it and smell it to understand it.
It’s like the ballerina who was asked to explain what a particular dance meant. She replied, “If I could have said it, I wouldn’t have needed to dance it.”
Since I am a speaker and writer—a words person—I know I need to surround myself with people who have communicative gifts that make my words more effective, or who simply communicate things so well that sometimes I don’t need to say anything at all.
Thank God for architects and landscapers; for scriptwriters, directors, and editors; for florists, decorators, and event planners; for lyricists, singers, and musicians; for photographers and graphic artists. I love collaborating with people who use their gifts to foster beautiful communicative environments where people’s hearts can be warmed to receive something good and true.
Drop a comment and tell us about a time you collaborated with others to communicate with beauty.
James Sire, How to Read Slowly (Wheaton: Harold Shaw, 1978), 58.
Seth Godin, Linchpin (New York: Penguin, 2010), 7.
Eugene Peterson, The Pastor (New York: Harper Collins, 2011), 239–240.
Ken Gire, Windows of the Soul (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 148.
Adapted from The Hospitable Leader (Baker Publishing Group) by Terry A. Smith. All rights reserved.
Photo by Petar Starčević from Pexels
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