A Reflection on Beauty and Cycling
761,949 feet. That is the number that Strava reports as the elevation I cycled in 2021. 2x the elevation of Jeff Bezos’ rocket trip into space (351,210’). 26x Mt Everest (elevation 29,032’). 88x my childhood home in Bogotá, Colombia (elevation 8,661’).
I recently had a birthday, and like my age, 761,949 is just a number. I wasn't tracking that metric, and I was not trying to achieve a particular objective.For as long as I can remember, I have loved the mountains. Some people are charmed by the sea and the beach, others are captivated by forests and lakes. I am enchanted by the beauty and majesty of the mountains.
The longer I live, the more I agree with those who have observed that every human being on this earth is seeking the same thing: that we matter. We need to know there is something significant about me. And we go about seeking that assurance in any number of ways. Some of us do it by pursuing financial success, others by pursuing musical excellence or artistic achievements. Some of us do it by seeking educational success, or workplace promotions, or political office. Some of us do it by working hard at being beautiful or by being smartly dressed, or by eating and drinking at the coolest restaurants, coffee shops and bars. Some pursue sports achievements, others the fittest bodies, others the coolest travel experiences. Some do it by working hard at being funny, or by trying to appear to be the smartest person in the room. Some by trying to be the best child in the family, or the perfect parent. Or by being the toughest in the gang, the most outrageous among the outcasts, the most liberal among the liberals, the most conservative among the conservatives. Or by carefully curating posts on social media that make it look like they are living lives others should be envious of. And then there are those that have a desperate need for romance because they can’t feel they matter unless they are loved.
Everyone needs assurance that they matter. And those that can’t get it are the most at risk of hardness, or bitterness, or narcissism, or depression, or even of taking their own lives. Theologians have pointed out that this reality is one of the arguments that the Biblical narrative is true: that each of us is made in the image of God, designed to have a relationship with Him and to share in His glory. But because our human race, starting with Adam, rebelled against God and chose to live life on our terms, we lost access to that glory and have been seeking it ever since. We can’t live without glory, so we seek it here on earth. And that is the problem -- the glories of this earth will always fade, and they will never satisfy our souls. A stock market crash or a business cycle will take our financial success, a disease or injury will take our fitness or athletic prowess, age will take our beauty, a shift in the political winds will take our office, technological disruption will take our job, a careless comment or action will destroy our curated image.
But if there is an eternal God who created us - and I believe there is - then His glory is still there. And if we can access that eternal and unending glory, our souls will be satisfied, and we will find rest.
God has left us a myriad of breadcrumbs that point the way back to his glory, and his DNA is in our identity. For instance, why do we struggle with death, if it is so natural, as the atheists say? Because we know, deep within us, that we were made to live forever.
Another of those breadcrumbs is experiences of beauty. Pastor/theologian Tim Keller observed in one of his sermons that when we gaze on something beautiful and find pleasure in it simply because it is beautiful to us, we immediately sense the meaningfulness of our existence. When we are in the presence of beauty, we know life means something, that we mean something.
The American statesman and historian George Bancroft once said, “Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the infinite.” Elaine Scarry, Professor of Aesthetics at Harvard, in her book ‘On Beauty and Being Just’, notes that beauty invites the search for something beyond itself, and that through the years philosophers and poets have perceived beauty to be bound up with the immortal.
The British writer and sage C.S. Lewis argued that experiences of beauty, those profound moments of longing or unspeakable joy, are the strongest argument there is for God. When we experience an intense, overwhelming longing or joy -- a desire for an indefinable numinous, cosmic something that is beyond our grasp -- it must be because we desire an object that our natural world cannot supply.
The beauty of the world God created for us points back to his beauty. And when we experience beauty, we are getting a small taste of God’s glory, a taste of heaven, and we find the rest that we will never get by pursuing our own glory. The French artist Henri Matisse noted that in the presence of something truly beautiful (which he desired his paintings to be), the problems we have in this world start to subside.
When I cycle up, whether it is up hills or up mountains, I find beauty. Sometimes it is extraordinary scenery on a glorious day. Sometimes it is when rain or wind or cold – or all three – surround me. Sometimes it is in the agony of getting up a climb, and the joy at reaching the top. And in all those experiences of beauty, I am tasting a bit of heaven, I am experiencing the joy of my creator, I am encountering God. It really doesn’t matter how far or how high I cycle, it is the experience of beauty and joy that satisfies.
And so 761,949 doesn’t matter. One doesn’t have to cycle up mountains to find the glory of God. The apostle John tells us that the best place to find the glory of God is by contemplating what God did for us by coming to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John was a close companion of Jesus for three years, and his eyewitness account was that he had found someone so beautiful, not in form, but of such flawless character, conduct, and speech, that he knew he had encountered God. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.” John’s gospel was written so that we – like him – could also believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we might have life in his name. We know we matter because the God of creation has tangibly demonstrated to us that we matter – he came into our world and lived the perfect life that we should be living, and then suffered and took the punishment for our self-centeredness and rebellious ways that we deserve, so that we could find rest for our souls.