Good, Not so Good and Bad

I have been thinking of sin lately, mainly because I am steeped in it, but, hey, thats me. Specifically, I have been thinking of the areas in which I am most tempted, and which many are similarly are tempted.

I have always loved the concept of God expressing his being to us through the good, the true, and the beautiful. I delight in art which makes me reflect on the beauty of creation; poetry with fills we with awe at the thought of Gods depth. And, unfortunately, this if usually where my temptations begin.

I believe that the most powerful and potentially destructive sins begin in the true, good, and beautiful. Sin begins as a slight perversion of these. Then, the more removed they become from God and remain as separate concepts the more they begin to fester with corruption.

One example of this can be seen in art. To preface: this is a gross generalization about art, so don't be too pissed at me. I have always appreciated the visual arts, I am very visual by nature and so they have always been able to communicate rather strongly to me. At the beginning, I loved art because it spoke of God's creation, and the inherent beauty therein. But it seems the trend has moved away from expression of the universal, to the expression of the individual. Within this trend, art has become more "dark" (something which I am not entirely opposed to: I hate kitsch). But it has become dark in a way that is not informing, but merely destructive.

On a more personal note, I have always been a lover of photography. And through this love, I came to an appreciation of the female form, for it has long been a popular subject of photography. The body in general is an amazing thing. It's form; such graceful lines and intricate connections. It is a true thing of beauty. However, this healthy appreciation led to pornography. While female form is something that should be appreciated, it can only be truly appreciated in the correct context. For me pornography gets its appeal from its depiction of this beauty, but it becomes destructive because it has perverted the beautiful into a consumable, something that is used for our own ends instead of initiating worship of God.