IGNORANCE, INCOMPETENCE, INDIFFERENCE OR AVARICE?

PERFECT MANUFACTURED
SYMMETRY

I can't believe it.  I put my mind about fake trees on the line the other day, and I got an experience today (12/19/2010), yesterday, actually that really got my blood going.  I walked into church in a fairly OK mood.  I couldn't help it.  God is being good to us Southern Californians this year.  So far we're way ahead of the rain accumulation schedule for the season, so most of us who care about rain and drought and other things are rather happy about this.  So, despite the rain, it wasn't too cold and the rain was a good, gentle, steady, soft type of fall.  So I sauntered down the aisle a couple of steps and all of a sudden I got clobbered by an atrocious anomaly.  There in the sanctuary, one in each corner of the back limits of the holy dais stood two perfectly symmetrical plastic artifacts subbing for God's artfully crafted pine trees.  It took about 10 seconds to get me up to around 250/120 BP.
I come from the classical world of only the best that nature has to offer is what you celebrate your prayers with.  It's in the Bible.  You only offer the first born, perfectly unblemished male of the litter to God.  After all, Jesus didn't suffer under plastic olive trees; he was kept warm by real, natural, grass-fed sheep.  He Himself was not fake.  As we say, sometimes, "He wasn't chopped liver."  So I figure that the rules about church candles for the altar and the tabernacle should be at least 90% beeswax and that the plants that are used to enhance the worship space should be 100% natural. A plastic facsimile (two, actually) of a pine tree masquerading as a Christmas Tree is an insult to God.  Let me tell you why.

GOD CREATED THESE

I am not going to talk about anything from Church Law here not even from the Catechism.  Just plain ol' grouchy Paul.  True beauty and awe in nature is not born out of symmetry.  In fact what is grandiosely more awesome than symmetry is beauty that is found in judicious a-symmetry.  The fact is that the greatest part of nature is not symmetrical at all.  Truly natural trees are not perfect triangles.  Man made ones are because that's how we like to make our stuff.  Look out your window right now at your favorite view.  Is it perfectly symmetrical?  Of course not.  Even if it is only a back alley view from some dumpy Internet cafe, I'll guarantee you that it might not be pretty, but its lack of beauty does not spring from the fact that it is not symmetrical.  So, actually, why do we go for the counterfeit rather than the truly God-minted reality?  It's because symmetry is easier.  It's what we do best.  I hadn't advanced to less than 45 feet from these two horrendous blasphemies and I knew that they were perfect pictures of the sinful indifference that seems to rule the world of our times.
A few years ago I learned something about the Japanese people and  their culture as relates to what is beauty and what is not beauty.  For the Japanese, imitating nature is the way to produce beauty.  For the Japanese, symmetry is not the template for beauty.  Beauty is in a-symmetry that causes a spiritual movement of the soul upwards.  This is the kind of a-symmetry that is actually found in nature.  Think about it.  Trees, even when they are full of leaves have all kinds of "defects" but put a bunch of them together and you still appreciate the beauty of the ones (almost all) with "defects."  And what about the times when they have no leaves?  Look at  them.  They still have  the power to make us feel that they are beautiful.  Now, get personal.  Look in the mirror.  Are your eyes both the same size?  Is your nose straight? Does it have as much mass on one side as on the other?  What about your ears?  Even if you don't like your ears, look at them anyway and realize that they are perhaps not the exact same size and that  they are perhaps not on a level the one with the other. You don't even have to go to the mirror. Look at your hands; your feet, etc.  Now go somewhere to your favorite statue or your favorite painting.  Look at it.  Does it fail to follow the law of a-symmetry?  If so, is it really beautiful, or is it "technically" well constructed but contains too much symmetry?  Why do you suppose the Pietà can make people cry?  I'll bet that part of it is because the two people it represents are not standing side by side to one another.
Anyway, that's my thought for the day.  I had another one too about St. Joseph.  I've got time left for that one.  I've got it noted so I won't forget.
Somehow I hope the pastor makes the mistake of "bumping into me" in the next fews days.