80 Sermon Illustrations on Beauty

Girl won Miss Minnesota title in the Miss USA pageant, was arrested for shoplifting in Dayton's department store in Edina with $372 of clothing. She resigned. First runner-up took over, but had to resign, too. She had been arrested on shoplifting charges attempting to walk out of Donaldsons in Burnsville with two skirts valued at $76. Pageant officials had no objections to either girl running - looks, not character, is its only interest.

A few years back the American Airlines ticket office in Fort Worth, Texas, was picketed by a group called “Uglies Unlimited.” They were upset because the airline advertised for good-looking people when hiring. Apparently a lot of companies do this [did this – they would get sued for it today], advertising for “attractive receptionists” or “pretty secretaries.” The president of Uglies Unlimited, Danny McCoy, says they just want to be accepted for who they are, instead of what they look like. Mr. McCoy estimates that up to 10% of all American are widely considered to be ugly.

You may think this is all pretty humorous - unless YOU are ugly. In that case, you KNOW that the discrimination is real, and it hurts.

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From the website of Uglies Unlimited (UU):

Since 1973 Uglies Unlimited has been the guardian of ugly human beings. The uncomely constituents of UU are vexed by the social injustice that human beings must endure for having an ill-favored appearance. In the past, these unfortunate souls have had to resolve themselves to remain second-class citizens. Unadulterated, flagrant discrimination in employment has contributed to the success of Pretty Power.

The Equal employment opportunity Commission protects the employee and the job applicant against discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Yet, until UU organized there was no entity to safeguard the liberty of the homely hundreds who are denied work due to capricious characters in personnel departments.

Uglies Unlimited opens its doors to secretaries with warts, stewardesses with pimples, policemen with freckles, hostesses with lumps, salesmen without teeth, barbers without hair, business men with hook noses and waitresses with varicose veins.

"She is magnificently ugly--deliciously hideous. She

has a low forehead, a dull grey eye, a vast pendulous

nose, a huge mouth, full of uneven teeth.... Now in this

vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which in

a very few moments, steals forth and charms the mind,

so that you end as ended, in falling in love with her."

--Henry James, of Mary Ann Evans (who went

by the pen name of George Eliot).

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling -- something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation -- as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value -- the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends -- a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do -- oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two -- and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again -- you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice -- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you -- sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year -- what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs -- the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims -- just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men -- wonderfully wise men -- who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

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It was one of history’s most deadly cover-ups, responsible for countless deaths. Yet it had nothing to do with politics, crime or money.

The Greeks called it “kosmetikos”. The word means “skilled in decorating”, or “cosmetics” in English. Though face powder and eye paint go back to ancient Egypt, it was the Greeks of 700 B.C. who put a whole new face on makeup.

Although men of the time valued the natural look, they coloured their cheeks with rouge. But mistresses of the wealthy heightened the rouge’s redness by first applying white powder to their faces and necks. No one knew at the time, but the powder contained large amounts of lead which destroyed complexions and shortened lives. Though the rouge itself was made from harmless mulberries and seaweed, it was coloured with cinnabar, a poisonous, red derivative of mercury. Since the same cream was used to paint the lips, the toxin easily found its way into the body.

Just as dangerous was a popular Greek and Roman product called orpiment, used by both sexes to remove unwanted body hair. It’s active ingredient was arsenic. Even as late as the 18th century, European women were eating “Arsenic Complexion Wafers” which really did whiten the skin. The wafers worked by poisoning the blood so it carried fewer red cells and less oxygen.

Since arsenic, lead and mercury all affect the fetus, the chemicals resulted in countless miscarriages, stillbirths and deformities over the centuries. It wasn’t until the close of the 1800s that the French invented “safe” cosmetics.

“If looks could kill!”, we hear people say. Well they did, for hundreds of years. And they still do. In a society preoccupied with appearances, even our churches are filled with people who hide their true face behind deadly, disfiguring identities that are substantially made up.

That’s because we continue to put subtle conditions on love and acceptance. People are welcome, as long as they don’t have any “big” sins and grow as fast as we think they should. No wonder those who worry their struggles wouldn’t be understood hide their blemishes and cover up their fear, doubt and failure.

When we cake ourselves with the powder of pretence and the paint of emotional protection, we all but obliterate our natural beauty. Those toxins wrinkle the spirit. They eventually seep inside, poisoning lives, love and relationships. They can even cause rebirth defects as enforced conformity leads to deformity of the soul.

God won’t countenance a phony face. He calls us to wipe away every guise and disguise and recognize the true beauty that comes of seeing past imperfection to the grace of Jesus. He is patient and loving and able to help us overcome our struggles. Not even our sin can hide us from the love of God, and that perspective should give our faith a whole different complexion.

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Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, Brantford, Ontario, Canada

Few people captured the American imagination like America's first astronauts - that's why, for many of us, names like John Glenn are on a list of 20th Century heroes. John Glenn was, of course, one of the first men to ride a rocket into space. Then, years later, as a “senior citizen,” he amazed the world by doing it again. So when John Glenn gives advice to today's space shuttle astronauts, he's got credentials! I love what he is reported to have told the Columbia astronauts before what turned out to be their last flight. He said, “Hey, don't forget to look out the window!”

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Missing the View.”

Once they were in space, the Columbia astronauts - and other astronauts - expressed their appreciation for John Glenn's advice. They confessed to being so busy doing what they were doing that it was all too easy to miss the spectacular view all around them. A tendency, by the way, that isn't just limited to astronauts. Those of us who are highly task-oriented or goal-oriented (that's me), can easily get so consumed that we “forget to look out the window” - we miss the beautiful things happening right in front of us and all around us.

In our word for today from the Word of God, David seems to be addressing our tendency to miss or forget a lot of life's blessings. In Psalm 103, beginning with verse 1, he says, “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who forgives our sins and heals our diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things...”

When you take time to enjoy the beauty “out the window” you'll see the new beginnings the Lord has given you after you've blown it: the health that He's preserved or restored, the pits that He's rescued you from, the little and big things He's doing right now to show you His love, and the good things you wanted that He has provided. When you fail to stop and “smell the flowers” as some have said, you start to get all stressed, brittle and overwhelmed and even negative. But taking a timeout to catch your breath, regain your perspective, and appreciate all the good things around you will renew your joy, your energy, and your attitude.

Maybe in your hurry to get it done or to get to your destination you've inadvertently been running over people - including people you should stop and enjoy, stop and listen to. Maybe you're missing all the blessings in your situation because all you focus on is your burdens. You need to take some timeouts to let your soul catch up with your body. Enjoy the scenery. Stop the rat race long enough to just take a leisurely walk, take time to listen to a child (they often help us see the world as we ought to see it). Stop to give a hug, look for things you can compliment in the people around you, and consciously, intentionally thank God for specific blessings of the past 24 hours, or the past 24 minutes.

The Bible reminds us that God's “mercies are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23), which means there's new God-stuff to appreciate each new day for those who are looking for evidence of God in their day. Now, if you're tired and tense and feeling overwhelmed, it could be that you've been so absorbed in your mission that you've forgotten to look out the window.

In the best of times, in the worst of times, no matter what universe you're in right now, there is always something beautiful to see - because of the awesome God who's always doing something new and something good.

________________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #15953]

"If a man finds himself with bread in both hands,

he should exchange one loaf for some flowers

of narcissus, because the loaf feeds the body,

but the flowers feed the soul."

-- Muhammad

Not long ago there appeared in the newspapers the story of a little boy who had come in contact with a live wire that had been allowed to be unguarded. It touched one side of his face, burning and paralyzing it. In court the boy's lawyer asked the little fellow to turn toward the jury and smile. He tried. One side of his face smiled, but the injured side puckered up in a hideous and pitiful contortion. The jury took just twenty minutes to award the boy twenty thousand dollars. That was certified as the legal value of a smile.

__________

Fireman's Fund Record

*

THE FOX and the Leopard disputed which was the more beautiful of the

two. The Leopard exhibited one by one the various spots which

decorated his skin. But the Fox, interrupting him, said, "And how

much more beautiful than you am I, who am decorated, not in body, but

in mind."

Isn't it sad that so many people are more concerned about their

physical beauty than they are about their inner beauty? The Apostle

Peter said it best when he wrote in \reference{1 Peter 3:3-4}{1 Peter

3:3-4}: "Don't be concerned about the outward beauty that depends on

fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should

be known for the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of

a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God."

The neighbors watched the new church building go up in just one month — and what a sight it was! The church was a squat, square building made of unrelieved concrete. On the inside was garish red carpeting. A massive parking lot surrounded the church.

Nothing could possibly have been uglier — and the fact that so many Christians build church structures like this reveals how far Christians have strayed from the place beauty and art are meant to have in our lives.

As the late Francis Schaeffer notes in his book, ART AND THE BIBLE, we evangelicals tend to relegate art to the fringes of life. Despite our talk about the lordship of God in every aspect of life, we have narrowed its scope to a very small part of reality. But the arts are also supposed to be under the lordship of Christ, Schaeffer reminds us. Christians ought to use the arts “as things of beauty to the praise of God.”

This is exactly what God commanded regarding the building of His Tabernacle. As Schaeffer says, “God commanded Moses to fashion a tabernacle in a way [that] would involve almost every form of representational art that men have ever known.” In Exodus 25, for example, God instructs Moses to make for the Holy of Holies “two cherubim of gold; of beaten work shalt thou make them.”

In other words, God was commanding that works of art be made: a statuary representation of angels.

Outside the Holy of Holies, lampstands were to be placed — that is, candlesticks of pure gold, decorated with representations of nature: almond blossoms and flowers.

And then we have the descriptions of the priestly garments. Upon their skirts were to be designed pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet.

Does God value beauty for beauty’s sake? It seems He does. Consider the two columns Solomon set up before the Temple. He decorated them with a hundred pomegranates fastened upon chains, as God commanded. These two free-standing columns supported no architectural weight and had no engineering significance, Schaeffer writes. “They were there only because God said they should be there as a thing of beauty.”

And this brings us back to those ugly church buildings we often build. No wonder non-Christians often remark on the ugliness of our churches — an ugliness that is off-putting to anyone sensitive to beauty. We have forgotten that beauty is not achieved, as some argue, just to draw people into the church, but because it is a form of praise to the God who designed and created magnificent mountains, delicate flowers, and our beautiful children.

No doubt you have seen churches that have crossed the line from beautiful to garish, where opulence is more valued than true beauty. Indeed, historically, the Protestant reaction to opulent church furnishings was to seek beauty in simplicity. And that is fine too. But every congregation, no matter how small its budget, should ensure that its facilities, humble though they may be — and in some parts of the world, they are very, very primitive — nonetheless, are tasteful and reflect the beauty of the Creator.

The God we worship glories in beauty.

________

Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #92]

The women are wandering about the living room, chatting, sipping drinks, and nibbling on nachos. It looks for the entire world like a home sales party, and it is. But these women are not here to buy makeup or Tupperware. They came to be injected with a deadly poison.

One by one, the women disappear into another room, where a doctor awaits them. He injects each client with a syringe full of diluted botulinum toxin type A, better known as Botox. The drug temporarily paralyzes the muscles that cause wrinkles. Within days, a wrinkled forehead becomes as smooth as a young girl's - at least for a few months. Injections must be repeated.

Close to a million people asked for Botox last year, and millions more will this year. That's in addition to the millions of healthy Americans who will undergo costly surgery simply to make themselves look better.

Why are we willing to spend so much for results that are so temporary? In his book, WHEN NO ONE SEES: THE IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER IN AN AGE OF IMAGE, philosopher Os Guinness says, with customary insight, that it has to do with "the modern world's obsession with physical appearance."

This began to occur, Guinness writes, when Americans began moving from the country to cities, "from small, stable, face-to-face relationships to fast, superficial, largely anonymous acquaintances." The result, he says, was "an accompanying shift from an emphasis on internal character to one's external appearance. Thus the traditional ideal of 'the strong character' has given way to 'the striking personality' and 'the successful image.'"

The dramatic increase in cosmetic procedures "is the mirror image of the decline of character," Guinness argues. Plastic surgery was once confined to those with disfiguring war injuries. Having it for purely aesthetic reasons was considered a mark of vanity, "because perfectibility was understood to lie within the spiritual, not the physical realm," Guinness writes. "Crooked noses ... sagging breasts, and spreading wrinkles were realities of this earthly life, to be borne with dignity and humor" -- not anymore.

Today, even teenagers are beating on the doors of plastic surgeons, anxious to remove that small bump on the nose or to enlarge their breasts.

The dangers of valuing image over character becomes clear in the political arena. Michael Medved recently asked in the WALL STREET JOURNAL why ABC News would place freshman senator John Edwards ahead of veterans Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle, and Joe Lieberman in the presidential sweepstakes. The answer: "His resemblance to a Hollywood star makes him an instantly credible presidential prospect."

The same is true in other areas of life. How much wisdom and how many friendships do we miss out on because we look no further than someone's plain face or gray hair?

We need to beware of the modern tendency to admire image and personality over character and conviction. One way to do this is to make an effort to get to know our neighbors in a deeper way -- one that helps us look beyond physical appearance to inward character.

To paraphrase the Proverbs, true character proceeds from the heart -- not from a syringe of Botox.

For further reading:

Os Guinness, WHEN NO ONE SEES: THE IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER IN AN AGE OF IMAGE (Navpress, 2000).

Deborah Newman, LOVING YOUR BODY: EMBRACING YOUR TRUE BEAUTY IN CHRIST (Tyndale, 2002).

BreakPoint commentary #020218, "Wrinkle and Emotion Free: Botox and the Boomers."

Michael Medved, "Hegemony of the Handsome," WALL STREET JOURNAL, 20 March 2002.

Liza Mundy, "Facing Facts," THE WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE, 12 May 2002.

_________________________

Copyright © 2002 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

A mother once came to President Lincoln seeking the pardon of her son, under sentence of death. The result of her pleading was that Lincoln issued a pardon. After leaving him, as she passed through a corridor, she exclaimed to Thaddeus Stevens, who accompanied her, "I knew it was a lie!" Stevens asked: "What do you refer to?" She replied with vehemence, "Why, they told me he was an ugly-looking man, but he is the handsomest man I ever saw in my life."

A dear old lady was asked what she used to make her complexion so

beautiful and her whole being so bright and attractive. She answered

in short:

I use for my lips, truth;

I use for my voice, kindness;

I use for my eyes, compassion;

I use for my hands, charity;

I use for my figure, uprightness;

I use for my heart, love;

I use for any who do not like me, prayer.

Try this make-up and see what it will do for you.

Robert G. Lee, {Lee Lines, }(Nashville: Broadman Press, 1937)

18-19

I drove my son who is twelve years old, to a friend's house to do a home work project. The boys' mother came out as we drove up to ask if my son wanted to stay for dinner also. When she went back in the house I commented on how pretty she was. My son said "mom, you're pretty too, you're just having a bad day!"

________

Source: Just for Grins, http://www.coolnewsletters.com

It’s getting to the point where I hesitate to turn on the TV. From the financial crisis, to hurricanes, to Iran, to fuel prices, you name it. And it’s not just the news, it’s the media’s — and the public’s — voyeuristic preoccupation with chaos that troubles me. The news is grim.

But don’t just hide in bed and pull the blanket over you. We need to understand what’s happening in the world, not as mere spectators, but in order to engage the world in a winsome way, ourselves to be light in the darkness.

I can’t help but be reminded of a lesson taught by a certain Oxford don named C.S. Lewis. Yes, these are frightening times today. But 60 years ago the entire world was at war. It was then that he preached his famous sermon THE WEIGHT OF GLORY. This is what he had to say: “Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun.”

Lewis’ words could not be more appropriate for us today. It’s precisely during times of crisis that we must persevere all the more in our quest for beauty and truth.

________

Edited from a longer article by Rev. David Holwick. Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was moved to HolwickID #28441]

Seeing a beautiful woman triggers a pleasure response in a man's brain similar to what a hungry person gets from eating or an addict gets from a fix, scientists say.

Researchers said the study, published Wednesday in the journal Neuron, shows that feminine beauty affects a man's brain at a very primal level, not on some higher, more intellectual plane.

"Beauty is working similar to a drug," said Dan Ariely of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, a co-author of the study.

Researchers showed a group of heterosexual men in their mid-20s pictures of men and women of varying attractiveness, while measuring the brain's responses through computer imaging.

The beautiful women were found to activate the same "reward circuits" as food and cocaine do. The men had a negative reaction to pictures of good-looking males, suggesting they were threatened by them, study author Hans Breiter said.

Breiter said evidence that beauty stimulates these primal brain circuits has never been shown. He said the findings counter arguments that beauty is nothing more than the product of society's values.

"This is hard-core circuitry," Breiter said. "This is not a conditioned response."

Scientists said the findings could have major implications for research into what motivates people.

"We think of these things as a products of a very high level of thought," said John Mazziotta, director of the Brain Mapping Center at the University of California at Los Angeles, "and it may be very basic and fundamental."

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"It's remarkable to see how surgery can make a profound difference in someone's life," gushed an excited 23-year-old in an interview with Newsweek magazine. The young lady was reflecting on a medical procedure that had worked wonders in her life. What was the surgical sensation the young lady was so enthused about? Was it a new technique to treat heart malfunction? Perhaps a better way to combat cancer? No, the procedure that so impressed this young woman was nothing new -- it was plastic surgery. She simply had a bump removed from her nose.

Last week Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren put plastic surgery back into the limelight after unveiling the effects of a procedure that removed bags from under her eyes. Van Susteren's motivation for going "under the knife" seems to have been competition as much as vanity. Indicating that audiences expect even 47-year-old women to have the countenance of a 25-year-old she said, "I can't get through the day without someone mentioning it. I'm not going to out anyone, but every person on television has had it done."

Plastic surgery, which derives its name from the Greek word plastikos that means to mold or to shape, is nothing new. It traces its roots to around 600 B.C., when Indian surgeon Sushruta recorded his method of reconstructing a patient's nose from the skin of the cheek. In the late 1500's, Italian Gasparo Tagliacozzi -- known as the father of plastic surgery -- pioneered new surgical techniques for treating those injured in the street brawls of Bologna.

Plastic surgery was not widely practiced until World War I when it became an important means of repairing the gnarled faces and bodies of soldiers. Today, what began as a tool for treating disfigurement due to injury has become a multi-billion dollar industry performed mainly on those in good health, without medical necessity.

In the Untied States, plastic surgery is one of the largest and fastest growing medical specialties. Currently, the greatest percentage of those going for certain procedures, such as nose jobs and breast augmentation, are between the ages of nineteen and thirty-four. You read it right, nineteen and thirty-four!

In her book, "Venus Envy", Elizabeth Haiken points out that cosmetic surgery (plastic surgery performed for aesthetic reasons) was once considered a violation of the Hippocratic Oath sworn by all medical professionals, to "do no harm" to their patients. It was a mark of vanity, because perfectibility was understood to lie within the spiritual, not the physical, realm. Wrinkled faces, imperfect noses, thin lips, broad hips, and sagging bodies were realities of this earthly life, to be borne with dignity and honor.

The phrase, "I buffet my body and make it my slave," penned by the Apostle Paul has been reversed. We are now slaves to our bodies, buffeting our souls with every foolish rational for altering our physical selves in order to be more appealing to others and to feel better about ourselves.

Once character and competence were cultivated as the keys to self-esteem and success. Now image enhancement has taken their place. The emphasis is now placed on the package and not its contents.

When the creature is the focus of worship rather than the Creator, the emphasis is on the physical. Unnecessary cosmetic surgery becomes a sort of salvation setting us free from a "body of death". Os Guinness, a philosopher and apologist, said it well, "Worshipers of false gods, prideful mortals: who will give us absolution? Our plastic surgeons."

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“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30, NIV). The same principle would also apply to men.

The late Cecil Osborne wrote, “A biographer of Clark Gable pointed out that the actor had had five wives in his lifetime, four of whom had had a total of sixteen husbands in their lifetimes. Gable had been divorced three times, a widower once, and a ‘lover too often either to calculate or evaluate.’”

“There have been countless women whose hearts beat faster and their fantasies run wilder at the sight of Clark Gable, the so-called great lover, on the silver screen.

“Unfortunately,” according to Osborne, “excessively handsome men and fabulously beautiful women do not, on the whole, have stable marriages.”

Good marriages are built on love, companionship, goodwill, commitment, maturity, compromise, faithfulness and integrity — not on exquisite physical prowess or beauty.

Sadly, in the Western World we put great emphasis on physical beauty and attractiveness — as well as on material possessions — and very little emphasis on the development of the inner person — the part of us that has to do with loving and wholesome relationships.

And while man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart — and is a lot more interested in a beautiful heart than a beautiful body! This not an excuse not to take care of ourselves. Not at all. We need to take care of our physical health, but not be a slave to outward beauty.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to keep my priorities in order and develop a beautiful heart — especially in your sight. Gratefully in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Beauty Tips for the “Inner You”

• For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

• For beautiful eyes, seek out the good in other people.

• To lose weight, let go of stress and the need to control others.

• To improve your ears, listen to the word of God.

• For poise, walk with knowledge and self-esteem.

• To strengthen your arms, hug at least three people a day.

• To strengthen your heart, forgive yourself and others.

• Touch someone with your love.

° Rather than focus upon the thorns of life, smell the roses and count your blessings.

° Don’t worry and hurry so much… rather walk this earth lightly and yet leave your mark!

Have you had an intimate experience of beauty lately? That is, have you been enriched by it? Blessed by it? Thankfully, I have.

I recently attended a concert by the Morehouse Men's Glee Club. Morehouse is a historically African-American college whose glee club has a storied history. Their continual excellence has earned them tours around the world and across the U.S. In fact, their Christmas concert is one of the premier events on the Atlanta social calendar. Thus, I was delighted at the opportunity to hear them perform.

I was not disappointed. The rich and luscious tones of their voices ministered to me. From the clarion ring of the alto-tenors to the billowing of the basses, their song was beautiful. At the first note and I was compelled. Compelled by the power of their call. But it was not just the sweetness of their harmonies, or the perfection of their technique that compelled me. The words that they sang also called to me. You see, in the African-American choral tradition, Christian themes dominate. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a choral piece composed by an African-American that was not explicitly Christian in content and tone. And through this connection, a powerful and profound corpus of African-American choral music has been produced. Perhaps you have witnessed the powerfulness of which I speak. In song after song, and chorus after chorus, there is palpable hope, profound faith, and vibrant love.

But what is even more striking, is the environment in which many of these songs were written and performed, for many were created under the harsh yoke of slavery. Consider this. Possibly the most hopeful, the most faith-filled, the most joyful, of all American music, was composed by Americans who were roundly put-down, marginalized, and oppressed. That is astounding.

Astound us it should, for in it there is a deep and beautiful truth to be uncovered. You see, commonsense instructs that suffering steals joy, destroys peace, and unhinges hope. The African-American choral tradition refutes such commonsense. And it does so in the most Christian of ways.

The Gospel is not an exemption from suffering, but rather is the radical idea that God joins us in our suffering, and in fact takes on our suffering. That is the meaning of the Cross. God does not remain afar off from our pain, but rather takes on our pain. And in His doing so we can secure great comfort, great resource, and great hope.

I heard that great comfort, that great resource, that great hope in the performance of the Morehouse Glee Club. It was beautiful.

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Copyright © 2003 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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• For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

• For beautiful eyes, seek out the good in other people.

• To lose weight, let go of stress and the need to control others.

• To improve your ears, listen to the word of God.

• For poise, walk with knowledge and self-esteem.

• To strengthen your arms, hug at least three people a day.

• To strengthen your heart, forgive yourself and others.

• Touch someone with your love.

Last week, my wife and I were blessed to spend the entire week in the Teton National Park. Special thanks go to our gracious friends, D & T for the wonderful gift we enjoyed. Without their loving generosity, we would probably have never been able to experience such a trip. It was our first week-long vacation ever, and it could not have possibly been more beautiful!

I took over a thousand photos while I was there, and only ran out time, not things to photograph. I took about a dozen photos of the Teton range from across the Snake River, stitched them together electronically and color corrected them to get the panorama you see below.

Today’s devotional is a bit out of the ordinary. I want you to enjoy the jaw-dropping beauty of the Teton peaks while meditating on some wonderful verses in Scripture (NKJV, emphasis mine) that speak of mountains. Here is a link to a larger version of the panorama, which in turn will be linked to even a much larger version for those of you who want to see more detail (take a look, you won’t be disappointed!

Psalm 65:6-8

Isaiah 40:12

Psalm 104:32-34

Nahum 1:5

Habakkuk 3:10

Job 9:5-8

Matthew 17:20

Creator, Help us to see You in Your creation. In Jesus name, Amen.

Contemplation: Do the rocks and hills cry out to you that there is a God? How long can you go seeing the creation everyday without it pointing you to the Creator?

Application: Slow down. Stop and look around. Evidence, testimony and proof of the living God is all around you. Are you seeing it? Are you looking?

James 1:22 — But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (NKJV)

• What is the most obvious Bible truth you have learned today?

• What change in your life needs to be made concerning this truth?

• What specific thing will you do today to begin that change?

I have been asked tonight to talk about a Christian vision of beauty, and I am first struck by the fact that this conversation would be so rare. There are altogether too few opportunities for Christians to ponder some of the biggest questions of life. We tend to focus on the questions of urgency and the questions of immediate interest. That is not to say that such questions are improper, but it is to say that Christian thought can sometimes fall out of balance. One of the realities we face is that in a conversation like this, we are not exactly sure where to begin. Where should we begin talking about beauty?

Allow me to make a couple of preliminary observations, the first of which is this: There is something intrinsic to humanity that is drawn to beauty. There is something of an aesthetic desire in us -- an aesthetic appetite. Even infants are attracted to certain objects and even faces because of complexity and color and light, those elements which aesthetic theorists have considered the very substance of beauty, form, and attractiveness. Moreover, this desire for and recognition of beauty is something unique to human beings. Dogs do not contemplate a sunset. Animals do not ponder the beauty of the landscape. It is true the heavens are declaring the glory of God, but most of the creatures on the planet are oblivious to this fact. They neither make nor observe nor appreciate art. They stage no dramas, write no music, and paint no portraits. The desire for art is something unique and nearly universal among human beings.

At the same time, we must understand that beauty is in crisis; it is a contested category. Let me suggest two reasons why this is so. First, beauty is a category in crisis because it has been so devalued in the reigning confusion of popular culture. The fact is that we have come to use the word “beautiful” in an altogether awkward and inappropriate context. We speak of BEAUTY, when what we really mean is PRETTINESS, or attractiveness, or even likeability. None of these things, however, is actually equal to beauty. Yet the popular culture increasingly confuses the artificial for the real, the pretty for the beautiful, and the untrue for the true -- all of which are essentially one root confusion, as we shall see.

Second, beauty is a category in crisis also at the level of elite culture and academia, where philosophers who give attention to aesthetic theory are increasingly convinced that beauty is a shopworn category. It is either political, or entirely subjective, or delusional. Many of the major writers in philosophy suggest that beauty is a category we ought to discard altogether. The idea of beauty, they say, is too expensive, too contested, and too misleading.

In the history of Western thought, beauty has often been a difficult category. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, for example, was convinced that in the end aesthetics was a divergence from ethics, so that to be concerned with the beautiful was to be inadequately concerned for the good. Friedrich Nietzche, the very prophet of nihilism himself, believed that the category of beauty was a symptom of the decadence and the weakness of modern humanity. Only the decadent would consider beauty important, he argued, because all that finally matters is power. Perhaps in reality, Nietzche saw only power as beautiful.

But if beauty is in crisis in terms of the culture, both at the popular level and among the elites, it is also in trouble in the church, where the influence of popular culture has led to confusion about what beauty actually is and why we as Christians should seek it.

A Christian understanding of beauty runs directly into the wisdom of the age by suggesting that the beautiful is simultaneously the good and the true and the real. This goes all the way back to the conversation of the ancients -- especially to Plato, who understood the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real as being essentially reducible to the same thing. If there is one good, then that good must also be the true, which must also be the real, which must also be the beautiful. So the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real -- the four great historical transcendentals -- are unified in the One. For Plato, however, the One had no name.

Augustine, the great theologian of the patristic era, identified the One as the one true and living God. Taking Plato's metaphysical speculations into the very heart of the Gospel, Augustine suggested that Christians uniquely understand that the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real, are indeed one, because they are established in the reality of the self-revealing God -- the triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He alone is beautiful, He alone is good, He alone is true, and He alone is real. That is not to suggest that nothing else reflects beauty or truth or goodness. It is simply to say that He alone, by virtue of the fact that He is infinite in all His perfections, is the source and the judge and the end of all that is good, beautiful, true, and real. For as Paul said, from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever, Amen.

Now this Christian conversation about the transcendentals opens an entirely new awareness for us. We now begin to understand that there is a moral context, a truth context, to every question about beauty. We can no longer talk about beauty as a mere matter of taste. Instantly, by affirming the unity of the transcendentals, we are required to see beauty fundamentally as a matter of truth to which taste is accountable, rather than a matter of taste to which truth is accountable.

Thus, it violates Scripture and indeed the character of God to call something “beautiful” which is not good, or “true” which is not beautiful, or “real” which is not true. Yet if we are honest, we admit to ourselves that in our common cultural conversation, we routinely sever the good from the true, the true from the beautiful, the beautiful from the real, and the real from the good. As Christians, we alone really understand why this is so, and why it so important.

Augustine understood that beauty was a key Christian category. Indeed, Christians cannot properly think as Christians without understanding the power of beauty. In his CONFESSIONS he said this: “I have learnt to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new! I have learnt to love you late! You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself. I searched for you outside myself and, disfigured as I was, I fell upon the lovely things of your creation. The beautiful things of this world kept me from you and yet, if they had not been in you, they would have had no being at all.” In that confessional statement, Augustine is saying that it was beauty that was calling him. It was his Creator that was calling him, and yet he was distracted by the things of APPARENT beauty in the world. And yet he does not despise those things; he remembers that their beauty is merely a reflected beauty, derived from the fact that God is their Creator.

Augustine continues: “It was you then, O Lord, who made them. You who are beautiful, for they too are beautiful. You who are good, for they too are good. You who are, for they too are. But they are not beautiful and good as you are beautiful and good. Nor do they have their being as you the Creator have your being. In comparison with you, they have neither beauty nor goodness nor being at all.” Augustine realizes that in order to see true beauty, he has to go to his Creator, and then, knowing the Creator, he may observe the creation and see that it does indeed bear the mark of its Maker. There is undeniable beauty in creation, but in comparison with the infinite beauty of the Creator, such finite beauty no longer has the seductive allure it once had. All earthly beauty is simultaneously validated and relativized by the contemplation of the beauty of God.

The same theme was picked up by Jonathan Edwards, who said this: “True holiness must mainly consist in love to God, for holiness consists in loving what is most excellent and beautiful. Because God is infinitely the most beautiful and excellent being, He must necessarily be loved supremely by those who are truly holy. It follows from this that God's own holiness must consist primarily in love to Himself. Being most holy, He most loves what is good and beautiful, that is Himself. To love completely what is most completely good is to be most completely perfect. From this, it follows that a truly holy mind, above all other things, seeks the glory of God and makes the glory of God His supreme governing and ultimate end.”

In that brief statement, Edwards does something very helpful and very consistent with the Christian tradition. As a matter of fact, it is a necessary insight once we go to the Scriptures. If you search through the Old Testament, you will notice that the word “beauty” is really not there. Instead, it is the word “glory.” Throughout the Bible, the beauty of God is most commonly described as His GLORY. Once we understand the biblical category of glory -- that is, the reality of God in terms of His inner reality and the external manifestation of Himself -- we realize that God's glory encompasses all the transcendentals. To gaze upon God is not first of all to see His beauty, but rather His GLORY.

Edwards defined beauty as consisting mostly in “sweet mutual consents.” By this, Edwards meant that things are rightly set: The thing is what God declared that it must be. In other words, beauty is achieved when the thing created most closely and most perfectly glorifies its Creator. Thus a “sweet mutual consent,” or absolute harmony, exists between the created thing and the Creator.

When we look at the unity of the transcendentals, and compare Edwards' and Augustine's vision of view to our contemporary poverty concerning things beautiful, we are quickly and painfully aware that something has gone horribly wrong. Why would human beings seek to sunder the unity between the good and the beautiful, between the true and the real, between the beautiful and the true? Why would we want to call something that is ugly true? Why would we want to call something that is unreal beautiful? That is a symptom of a human sickness, and that sickness is sin.

Our understanding of beauty as a category in crisis begins not with contemporary confusion, but in the Garden of Eden, where our first parents were attracted to the forbidden fruit at least in part because it was attractive to the eyes. A false understanding of beauty -- the false allure of the evil rather than the good -- is a part of the story of the Fall. Thus the confusion over beauty is not merely an item of cultural consternation, nor is it merely a matter of theological debate. It is a matter of redemption. The only way out of our confusion over beauty is to know the Creator, to know Him not merely conceptually but personally, and to have our relationship with Him once again set right, something which only He can do. Then Edwards' vision of the “sweet mutual consents” might be realized -- a redeemed people once again entering into the mutual consent of the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real.

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This is an edited transcript of an address Dr. Mohler gave on November 14, 2005, at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

Researchers at Alabama’s Auburn University say they have determined what men want in the “ideal woman”: she is sexually inexperienced but likes sex, has a career but is a full-time homemaker, has a slim build, is athletic, and has pretty eyes, dark hair, good complexion and a firm derriere. A large bosom is nice, but not all that important.

The study’s lead author, Erica Gannon, says the specifications are similar to what is found in the Bible. “Our participants, whether knowingly or unknowingly, espouse a view of the ideal woman that is very similar to the views held by individuals thousands of years ago.” However, she adds, “It’s hard to be this woman.”

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UPI

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #27407]

Sixty years ago the entire world was at war. It was then that an Oxford don named C. S. Lewis preached his famous sermon “The Weight of Glory.” This is what he had to say:

“Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun.”

Lewis’ words could not be more appropriate for us today. It’s precisely during times of crisis that we must persevere all the more in our quest for beauty and truth.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #10764]