“Plato formulated what he named the “universals” as the True, The Good and the Beautiful. He held that if we are to live a whole and mature life, the three had to work together harmoniously in us. The Amercian church has deleted Beauty from that triad. We are vigorous in contending for the True, thinking rightly about God. We are energetic in insisting on the Good, behaving rightly before God. But Beauty, the forms by which the True and the Good take shape in human life, we pretty much ignore. We delegate Beauty to flower arrangers and interior decorators. Plato, and many of our wisest teachers who have followed him, insisted that all three – Truth, Goodness, Beauty – are organically connected. Without Beauty, Truth and Goodness have no container, no form, no way of coming to expression in human life. Truth divorced from Beauty becomes abstract and bloodless. Goodness divorced from Beauty becomes loveless and graceless.”
(-Eugene Peterson, In Practicing Resurrection, page 7)

I think this is why I love story. Truth and Good come to life and play out before my eyes. Perhaps also why I really dig the incarnation concept. Some see it in a still frame, others hear in notes and harmony and rhythm. I experience it in plot and characters.

I’m curious of the many containers of Truth & Goodness that others experience…