What is More Beautiful Than Necessary?
More Beautiful Than Necessary is my two-fold way of saying:
God is more beautiful, and has made the world and everything in it more beautiful, than was ever necessary. We have days when all we see is the ugliness of the world, so I try to get small, look close, and find the things and people and circumstances that illustrate God’s lavishness, and I present them to you as a way of restoring both our visions.
“It is as though beautiful things have been placed here and there throughout the world to serve as small wake-up calls to perception, spurring lapsed alertness back to its most acute level.” Elaine Scarry, On Beauty and Being Just
To need something is to make it a necessity, in the literal sense. But meeting needs is not just about food, water, clothing, shelter, and the gospel—all those things can be foisted on the world in a way that is neither Good nor Beautiful. You and I are in the image of a beauty-proliferating God, who multiplies His goodness in a million beautiful ways, and that must mean we have the capacity to offer Beauty to the world—through our art, our presence, our service, our words—and the responsibility to offer the world more beautiful things than necessary things.
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Hey! I’m Tresta.
I’ve been writing online since 2012, through motherhood, homeschooling, and many changes. I am happy to be at Substack now, and you can also find my words at places like Cultivating and Fathom Mag.
Here are some reader favorites:
I confess that I sometimes don’t enjoy reading my Bible//Cultivating a hermeneutic of adoration
On doing the dishes//Sometimes I think this is how I started to be a writer.
The Kindness of God//On losing my dad and holding on to mystery.
The 12X Mirror//I bought a 12X mirror and I see myself more clearly.
On voicemail and grief//I’ll bet there’s a voice you are afraid to want to hear.
In 2021 we bought a restaurant and remodeled it into a deli and market—a business we knew nothing about. We opened in January of 2022 and we know a little more now, and the beauty of being in the world of our neighbors is the reward for our labors.
I am an introverted, homebody, enneagram 9 with five grown kids, two grandkids, a dozen employees, and I also coach high school volleyball. God has obviously not asked me to operate in my strengths 🤷🏼♀️. But I am growing.
Whether you read for free or decide to pay a few dollars a month, I am thankful for you and your presence here. I’m eager to see the ways you are making and seeing beauty, truth, and goodness in the world.
