Search for truth, goodness and beauty leads to God

One of the great things about being a part of the Cloquet community is participating in the different local events and activities that take place throughout the year. This past February I listened every morning to the clues for the Groundhog Day Medallion Hunt on WKLK. Lacking the ambition to actually go searching for the medallion, I did like hearing the clues and trying to figure out where it was hidden. I imagine the gentleman who found the medallion enjoyed not only finding it, but also the search itself.

Searching and seeking are an important part of who we are. When we lose something, we look for it. But when it comes to who we are and what our lives are about, what we are searching for makes all the difference.

We have a natural desire to know what is true. No one likes being lied to. We want to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

What is truth? Simply put, truth is the mind being in agreement with reality. When our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us conform to who we actually are and what the world actually is, that is living in the truth. One would think that seeking the truth in our modern world would be easy, given the vast amount of knowledge available to us literally at our fingertips 24 hours a day.

Yet the search for truth has become increasingly difficult in a world that believes truth isn't the mind being in agreement with reality - rather, that the truth is whatever the mind claims reality to be. It's called relativism, and it's the denial that absolute truth exists. Relativism is very helpful when one finds the truth disagreeable or difficult because one can claim that "while something may be true for you, it isn't for me." But to quote Flannery O'Connor, "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."

Goodness is a second thing we are inherently attracted to. We all prefer the good over the bad. But as with truth, what is good can seem to be a matter of opinion. "As long as I am not harming anyone, I can do whatever I want and that is good for me. Maybe it's not good for you, but stay out of my way and I will stay out of yours."

The authentic definition of goodness is how well something does what it is made to do. A hammer does not make a good screwdriver. Christians believe that we are made to know, love and serve God, which compels us to love our neighbors and our enemies. When we do what we are made to do and we do it well, then we are good.

A third object of our searching and seeking is beauty.

Some say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If that were the case, then everything could be considered beautiful, and if everything is beautiful than nothing is beautiful.

Beauty exists when something is exactly what it is meant to be. Being true to nature or form brings about beauty. Beauty involves unity and harmony. Seeking beauty in our lives is a challenge. When we start to distinguish between what is beautiful and what is not, we see that there is much ugliness in the world around us.

Queen of Peace Catholic Church recently participated in a campaign with all the other Catholic churches in the state of Minnesota to provide resources for parents and families to protect their homes from the invasion of pornographic content that bombards us through our "connected" modern way of life. Our homes are meant to be sanctuaries that offer us protection from the evils of this world. When we can't even control what enters our homes through our screens, we know we are in for a tough fight.

We are naturally attracted to truth, goodness and beauty and instinctively search it out. The difficulties in our search come from confusing what is true with what is false, what is good with what is evil, and what is beautiful with what is ugly. Knowing what truth, goodness and beauty are is our first step in finding truth, goodness and beauty.

If we live in a universe created by a loving God, then the cosmos bears the stamp of the Creator. God is the source of all that is true, good and beautiful because God is the true, the good and the beautiful.

Seeking out truth, beauty and goodness will point us, ultimately, toward the God who created us.

Writer Father Justin Fish is the priest at Queen of Peace Catholic Church and Holy Family Catholic Church in Cloquet.