The Liberating Influence of Beauty

I am currently in Sydney, Australia, speaking at a leadership conference at Morling College. I left Kansas City on Thursday, arrived early Saturday morning, and will return home on Sunday, May 10. I think I am mostly free of jet-lag...

I am listening to another of the speakers right now, and like usual, I have to do something else simultaneously in order to focus. So I've been doing some reading, and found this marvelous quote from Albert Einstein.

"Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the Spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which you belong."

Last week I was at the Q conference in Austin, Texas, and felt like that is precisely what I was able to do - to learn for my own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which I belong. I hope to get some time to reflect on this blog what I found to be particularly compelling.

Comments

[Dane]

You're an incredibly busy man for the next few months. I think you're about to be influenced by more beautiful and lovely things then most people will be in a life time. To me, that's a sweet sweet thing! And, I hope that I get to read about it soon!

[Ryan]

Hi Tim,
I'm an Aussie and have friends who attend Morling College - if I'd only known you were visiting! D'oh! I've read your book "Intuitive Leadership" and it felt like it was written for me! You were able to articulate so many things that have been bubbling under the surface in my life and gave language to some of the frustrations I feel as a 28-year-old worship leader, who wants to see the Church (and my own role in the bigger Story) move forward, ushering in God's Kingdom through a faithful, creative, Jesus-centred and missional spirituality. So many things I'd love to talk about from your book - but for now, just "thanks!" God bless, Ryan.

[Ian]

Hi Tim - a question from your presentation here in Sydney - you mentioned several strands of thought in the OT, including the 'priestly', and how this was not dominant in the NT... Whose work was influential for you on this particular issue? I don't recall the author you may have mentioned...