The Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar and his writings on theological aesthetics have continued to inspire me. I had the good fortune of being a theology student of Father Robert McCreary's during an independent study on Balthasar and in that class I learned a deep appreciation of Balthasar's aesthetics.

Balthasar was a Jesuit priest, a musician, a writer, and a brilliant theologian. His writing is dense and I find I must sit with his writing for awhile. I think I could study Balthasar for the rest of my life and know only a small portion of his brill iance. I owe Father McCreary and Balthasar a great deal for inspiring and revealing to me--my love of beauty!

Professor David Schindler (David Schindler on Balthasar, Nov 2005) compares Karl Barth's writings on aesthetics to Balthasar in this quote, "I hope to read him (Balthasar) in conjunction with Barth -- years probably to complete! There is a Christian vitality that I find in Balthasar that is somehow different from the beauty of Barth's work. To use a crass analogy, Barth is beauty of a geometric proof; Balthasar that of a Picasso painting."

I came across Schindler's writing on Balthasar as I looked for Balthasar's description of a child discovering being loved by the mother's smile. It is in that first glance into the human face that a child discovers the wonder of being, the wonder of being loved. We are all creatures who are a gift from God and our sense of being unfolds in gratitude. The problem of our being, the problem of relationships, community and culture is that we no longer have gratitude towards God for our being and believe we are responsible for our own being.