For the look on their faces bears witness against them;
they proclaim their sin like Sodom;
it cannot be hidden (Isaiah 3:9).
"By the age of fifty, everyone gets the face he deserves," George Orwell claimed, an idea reflected in Dante's notion that the faces of the dead are made of an airy, malleable substance that shapes itself according to the state of each person's soul.
We are given the faces our souls merit. Live long enough, and we become on the outside what we have been all along on the inside. It's not Dorian Gray's portrait, but our own faces that will bear the marks of virtue or vice, greed or charity, kindness or bitterness,and reflect the person we have become.
Apropos of this thought, Paul writes, "We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Spend time in Jesus' presence every day. Read and reflect on his words and ask him to make you a reflection of the virtue you see in him. In time you will begin to bear his likeness—within and without—an inexorable process that will continue until you see his face in full (1 John 3:2).
Magic? Mysticism? My own “main strength and awkwardness?” as my father used to say. No, ”this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit“ who is within you.
David Roper
6.23.21
