“As Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands, he did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while he conversed with the Lord” Exodus 34:29.

Moses’ face shone because of his encounter and his experience of God, who is the all-good, all beautiful, and ultimate end, and for Whom we were created to praise, know, and love. Yet how often in our modern culture do you see on campus, on the T or anywhere you may walk people’s faces downtrodden and looking like zombies?

Far from refreshing people, technology and its constant hold on our lives through texting and the computer have robbed us of the radiance that our faces should have. We have been robbed of a contemplative awe, which has been replaced by a need for immediate gratification and cheap pleasure.

Look at the example of our society’s attitude toward sex. The prevailing sentiment supports one-night stands. Saving oneself for marriage is the exception. All that matters is the pleasure, and not the gift of oneself to his or her spouse within the marital vows made before God.

Our society’s cheapened view of sex can be owed to a lost sense of beauty. Regrettably our society has reduced sex to plumbing that provides pleasure. However, if people truly realized that in that special act between one man and one woman heaven touches down upon this earth, when God’s creative power joins with the love of a couple to welcome a new life into being, they would not take it so lightly.

Our culture has become bored. With technological advancements and ever expanding scientific knowledge, we have become arrogant, losing a sense of mystery and awe. Our ancestors had a much better hermeneutic of the world than we do.

Their vision was up and outward. Most ancient cultures had a profound regard for the night sky. The vastness of space and the beauty of the stars was not just an airless vacuum with disparate balls of burning gas. It was a starting point of meditation, and a mystery that led one’s thoughts and heart to contemplation of that Creator who set it all in motion.

Some change has happened though, which has situated people in our times to have an entirely opposite view of our ancestors. Cynicism and reductionism have given us tunnel vision. We think we have all the answers, so there is no longer any awe. Everything is reducible to instinct and atoms.

When we lose a sense of God, our Creator and the architect of this universe, we also lose a correct sense of ourselves and each other. Our anthropology becomes skewed. Father Ken Himes, in his course The Moral Dimension of Christian Life, taught that the beginning of morality is, indeed, a sense of mystery, before the presence of another. He used a memorable phrase to capture the idea that mystery can lead to morality. He said that the sense of “awe” before another’s presence led to an “ought” –or a way one should act toward that person.

As you begin each day anew, set aside some time for quiet reflection in the presence of our Creator. Like Moses, ascend the mountain in contemplative awe, and when you come back down, let your face shine for others.

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