Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality

by Belden C. Lane

This notion of the generative nature of praise, recognizing the power of desire to realize what it seeks, is rich in ecological significance—even if Calvin only slightly began to explore this himself. It suggests that celebration is as important to the well-being of the world as the physical and biological systems that contribute to its integrity. Contemporary naturalist and poet Pattiann Rogers asks in one of her poems, “Suppose praise had physical properties/and actually endured? . . . Suppose benevolent praise/ . . . had a separate existence, its purple or azure light/gathering in the upper reaches, affecting/the aura of morning haze over autumn fields?”56 What if the act of giving glory were shown in some slight way to influence, even maintain, the natural world as we know it? Such a question, asked by a woman who grew up in the Reformed tradition herself, arises naturally out of Calvin’s thought.