Mormon in love with Rayonnant Gothic

Today I sat in on a lecture on late Gothic style, very pleased since we were talking about my favorite style, Rayonnant Gothic, and my favorite building in the whole world, Sainte Chapelle in Paris. I remember the first time I saw it. The lower level was beautiful in itself, but when you climb up the stairs to the higher level, oh... The teacher today said “if you don't get some kind of 'wow'-reaction when seeing Sainte Chapelle then there's something wrong with you.”

There was a long discussion on my facebook page about how to deal with the challenge when your sense of esthetics differs seriously from the mainstream in your religion. All this was triggered by an email from a friend where she was wondering how often people choose a religion that does respond to one's own sense, and how those, who have found their religion through some other way, deal with it. They clearly do. I mean, I do. Most of my Finnish friends (the discussion was in Finnish) seemed to think that esthetic experiences are different from spiritual experiences, and therefore they are able to separate these two things. There were some other voices too, however. And I myself have been lately wondering how separate they really are...

Take church videos, for example. Mormon liturgy (Sunday meetings) are made fairly simple, pictures are not used and during the sacrament (communion) there is no music playing, apparently so that people could have a connection with God that wasn't influenced by esthetic experience. This would point to spiritual and esthetic experiences being separate. However, when helping others convert (I'm not discussing here whether that is possible, that's another thing) members are often encouraged to use basically esthetic experiences – using videos or music is considered effective ways to help others feel the Holy Spirit. So, here they are tied? And to be honest, some of my spiritual experiences have been linked to music – but always to music that I love, not “mormon music”.

Does this cause trouble? Yes it does, to me at least and to many others who have a strong sense of esthetics (whatever that is). I remember a time when my home ward in Helsinki was encouraging everyone to bring friends to see a new church movie. This was supposed to be a great missionary effort. I normally try to do what my ward leaders ask me to do – their job is not easy so try to make it a bit easier by cooperating – but this was impossible. I knew I wouldn't like the video and I knew any of my friends – mostly friends through different arts – would feel the same. I don't know if anyone was bothered by my rebellion except for myself, but I didn't want to rebel – just had a different view of esthetics.

Sometimes, when I look at Sainte Chapelle and get tears in my eyes just because it is beautiful, or when on Sunday morning I listen to old (medieval or baroque) spiritual music from the radio, I get a little sad. I'm a mormon and wouldn't want to be anything else, but I wish I could get unified spiritual and esthetic experiences through my religion. As it is, I need to seek them elsewhere. There are moments when I'm set as a rebel (if only silently) although I don't have any issue with faith or doctrine – only with esthetics.