A bit ago, I flipped through the channels, landing on Dr. 90210, a reality series about this Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and his patients.
At first it intrigued me. I’ve never been one to consider plastic surgery unless my face got disfigured or something equally tragic. So it felt like looking into another world. (But knowing that there’s a stat out there about Dallas women getting the most augmentations, I know I’m just not *seeing* that world here.)
The show, as it wore on, drained the joy out of me. Perfectly beautiful women didn’t feel enough. Even their boyfriends/fiances/husbands were excited about the possibilities for them. One woman, because she was learning how to be a bail bondswoman, had to relearn how to shoot because her new chest got in the way.
She was particularly tragic, in my opinion. Her fiance asked her to consider doing less, not more. He wanted her to look “classy” not trampish. When the bandages were taken off, she started crying. She got mad at him. “I wanted them bigger,” she cried. But, as nature has it, they did “grow” a bit and she was happy.
What kind of culture do we live in that demands women go under the knife (yep, they show a bit of that), to have a silicon implant squished inside? How is it that the world is in need of good medicine, great drinking water, food and shelter, and we obsess over the things we normally couldn’t change? Whatever happened to contentment?
I can’t tell you how weird the struggle’s been for me in America about how I look. In France, it was an afterthought. In America, I am bombarded with images of perfect women with flawless skin, nary a fat cell in sight. It makes me feel less. And I’ve bought into it.
Oh dear God.
It’s not what’s on the outside that lasts. It’s not. It’s the gentle and quiet spirit God desires. That’s what will last after our perfectly sculpted bodies lie in the ground. So why do we fret? Why bathe in discontent? Why not do everything we can do to prepare our souls for greatness?
In France, it was easy to see spiritual darkness. The heaviness was palpable. In America, darkness is dressed up, fixed up, beautified. It’s disguised as bodily, financial perfection. It’s just as dark, folks, yet far more enticing. It impoverishes our souls, but we don’t care.
