peace . love . joy

Is man's obsession with beauty "innate"?

As far back as I know (which really isn't that far and that detailed), image has been everything. From the latest fashion pieces hot off the runways of Paris and Milan, to seasonal make-up color palates, to edgy hair-dos, it's all hide this, flaunt that, conceal the unflattering, exaggerate the beautiful. Just turn on the television and there are countless programmes on beauty, in particular, physical beauty. There's even a whole channel devoted to it!

Apparently, beauty and youth go hand in hand... at least for majority of us (the Helen Mirrens, Meryl Streeps, George Clooneys Sean Connerys of this world are supposedly few and far between). The pursuit of beauty is underlined by a relentless chase to retain youth. Grey hair is "bad" and "ugly", and one feels practically compelled to yank 'em out or dye the entire crowning glory the moment one is observed. Mothers implore daughters to drink lots of water not to satisfy basic biological requirements in order to survive, but so the skin will be well hydrated and beautiful and won't look older than the being it envelopes. In bids to promote anti-smoking attitudes among school children and teens, slogans claim, among other more serious health threats, that smoking causes premature aging and the ugly-fication of the body. In make-up, concealers are used to hide blemishes while an array of colored powders and shades of tints help sculpt the features and bring a youthful glow. More recently, new technologies and methods hail the "progression" of medical surgery to cosmetic surgery. A little nip here, a little tuck there, a little implant here, a little suction there and voilà, you're good as new!

As many can probably testify, though, such procedures (creams, laser treatments, enhancing cosmetic surgeries, fashion, etc.) are exactly what they are: superficial. As Joe Stowell points out, these efforts are all (not inexpensive!) temporary, require maintenance, and are really in vain. Physiologically, our bodies are aging and uninhibitedly proclaim the process with knee creaks and neck cricks.

It's not because aging is inevitable, and out of a fear of that looming, oncoming defeat that we scramble to find some good in it.
Quite the contrary: that inevitable aging is good... for a disciple of Jesus Christ, that is.

Professor Chuck Dolph in Torch Magazine wrote:

"If we live long enough, we will lose our beauty, our strength, our wealth, our independence, the control of our bodily functions, our pride, and perhaps our very self."

What's so brilliant about that, you ask? Well,

"These are our idols, all the things that we trust in life to make us attractive, valuable, and self-sufficient."

For a vast majority of us mortals, the physical proves to be a real entrapment, a real fascination. There really is nothing wrong with wanting to look one's best, but all too often and all too easily, the focus shifts from thanks to the Creator God for the blessing of sight and beauty and creativity and provision, to a preoccupation, an obsession with the temporary, the fleeting. That which is transient, man has poured uncontainable efforts into transforming it into that which is permanant.

Christians are not blessed with some supernatural powers that spell victory over the juggernaut of physical aging. Christians too fall prey to the material, to the visual.
But here's where the Christian declares triumph:
In aging, the Christian is robbed of his youth (and sometimes beauty, since it really is subjective). And with that, so too is self-reliance and pride (in the tangible) robbed of him. Into their places step a dependence on and trust in God and humility (Stowell).

But a note of caution, Christian, do not wait for aging to become apparent before attaining these nuggets of life. Turn your focus now from the material, the tangible, the corporeal, from the make-up which does not matter to that which does, that of which we are made-up of: the immaterial, the intangible, the spiritual. Even though we are getting older, even though our shells of bodies are dying and wasting away, with our focus on God, we pour our hearts and spend our mights into the pursuit of internal eternal beauty - where it counts!

Age daily into a beautiful person whose eternal character is "wonderfully dependent on the grace and strength of God"(Stowell)!

Here's looking forward to "being more alive inside than ever before in our relationships with God" (Stowell)!

"If our aging is successful, we will end our lives stripped of everything but God...
utterly dependent on Him and the love of others." (Dolph)

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day... So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
~ 2 Corinthians 4: 16, 18