Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty

9. The Bridge to Wonder Is Ours to Build

131 I once sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge. When I was in college, a friend and I launched a laughably small and fragile catamaran out on the legendary San Francisco Bay. When we finally reached the bridge, we sat in awe of its towers rising above us over seven-hundred feet (about the size of a fifty-story building).1 The enormity of the bridge was breathtaking, but even more so was its intricacy. The structure is almost two miles long and supports a steady stream of heavy traffic by literally suspending it above the water. The bridge can do this because it was designed to be part of the bay’s ecosystem . As the wind blows, the cables that hold up the main span move with it. The cables can do this because they are not single structures but tightly bundled multiple strands of steel wire, almost thirty-thousand of them. During a particularly fierce storm, the massive bridge actually bowed six feet, mimicking the adaptability of the fragile branches of a jacaranda tree.2 Along with the wind, the bridge also reacts to the sun, becoming a giant orange vermillion thermometer as the steel expands and contracts, moving the span up or down as much as sixteen feet; the bridge interprets the heat of the day or the cool of the evening . The Golden Gate Bridge is a community of intricately interlaced structures, itself existing in community with the natural world 9 The Bridge to Wonder Is Ours to Build 132 Bridge to Wonder that surrounds it. The Golden Gate Bridge is art. The Golden Gate Bridge is also somehow religious. Art and religion, like the bridge, exist not as ends in themselves but as multistranded structures with a purpose. They are built from an abundance of distinct parts that also disclose a mysterious unity (1 Cor 12; Gal 3:28). The beauty of the bridge endures because of its relationship to the world it inhabits, its responsiveness to that world, and the care the human community it serves bestows upon it. Wind, cold, and heat would eventually destroy a rigid structure, but in the marvelous artfulness of the Golden Gate Bridge, it is the interlaced and nimble quality of its many parts that allows the bridge to react to what surrounds it. Through this relationship with nature, the bridge does not break but continues to do its beautiful work. My view of the bridge as art and as religious is unconventional, but it is one way we can concretely visualize and articulate theological aesthetics as a method. A method is, simply stated, a way to accomplish something. There are many ways to focus on the bridge, many ways of knowing it. Architects will use a method that allows them to measure and trace, to do mathematical calculations and determine loads and distribution. Urban planners will look at the role the bridge plays in connecting and moving populations between different counties and routing traffic flows. Those charged with public safety will want to make sure the bridge and all those who cross it are safe. Conservationists will catalog the bridge’s history, making sure its aesthetic integrity is respected while carefully monitoring innovations and restorations. And ecologists will vigilantly scrutinize the impact the bridge makes on the natural world, how the bridge may be in harmony with it and contribute to its flourishing. To look at the bridge through a theological aesthetics method, I actually needed all of these viewpoints, all of these strands, and then I needed to interlace them. The distinctiveness of these many strands helped lead me to the insight that the bridge’s beauty and function is tightly woven with the adaptability of its structure. Theological aesthetics method, as a way of approaching the bridge, is the theoretical articulation of the multiple encounters one could have with its orange. Something new is revealed with each approach. Viewed from across the bay, the bridge is tiny and fits between our fingers. Viewed from underneath, it is a marvel of awe-inspiring design and makes us feel miniscule. When we cross it, the bridge is The Bridge to Wonder Is Ours to Build 133 always different depending on how we cross it (car, bicycle, walking , alone, or with others) and why we are crossing it. The unique qualities of the bay also add to the adventure of being on the bridge, which...