Some thoughts that came my way as I watched the Amy Coney Barrett hearings.
George Orwell claimed that everyone, by the age of fifty, gets the face that he or she deserves, an idea that reflects Dante's vision of Purgatory, where the faces and bodies of the dead are made out of airy stuff that shapes itself in accordance with each person's soul.
We're given the face our souls merit, or so it seems, and no foundation cream, firming formula, or face lift can erase the malice and mendacity that arises from within. It's not Dorian Gray's picture, but our own faces that reflect the person we are becoming.
Conversely, “wisdom enlightens and softens one’s face" (Ecclesiastes 8:1). As wisdom grows, a calm countenance, kind eyes and smile lines begin to appear.
Paul put it this way, "Face to face with Jesus, beholding his beauty, we are being transformed into his image from one degree of inner beauty to another" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
The more we spend time in Jesus' presence—listening to him, learning from him, asking for his spirit and making his thoughts our own—the more we grow in wisdom, grace and love and our faces begin to reveal what we are becoming.
Faces “R” Us. In the end, they are our show and tell.
David Roper
10.16.20
