Today on the blog I published a list of my 12 favorite books from 2012 (see them here). In this episode of Authors on the Line we talk with pastor Steve DeWitt, the author of my choice for the book of the year: Eyes Wide Open: Enjoying God in Everything (Credo House).

Several Christian publishers turned the book down because Christians don’t really have an interest in reading about beauty, or so he was told. Despite the skepticism, I’m grateful this book got published. It is a wonderfully edifying book that first looks at the beauty of Christ and then reveals how it is through divine beauty and through Trinitarian beauty that we can see and appreciate all the lesser created beauties of the world.

In our 24-minute conversation I asked DeWitt:

• What is beauty in the first place?
• Why are we humans are hardwired to spend our lives chasing beauty?
• How is the cross and the death of Christ — for all of its ugliness — beautiful?
• In what particular ways does the fall impact us beauty-junkies, particularly in how we perceive and use — or mis-use — created beauty?
• How hard is the battle to be personally convinced, every day, that Christ is the most satisfyingly and beautiful thing/person in the universe?
• At what point in your own life did your eyes become “wide open” to the gifts that God has given in the beauty of creation?
• How do we navigate two realities: (1) this world is full of God’s created beauty, and (2) this is a fallen world and much of what we see around us is twisted and distorted by sin?
• Why is it possible for non-Christian artist — musicians, painters, actors, novelists, poets, etc. — to create beautiful art that at times leads a Christian to lift their hearts in worship to God?