So, I had a conversation Sunday I’ve never previously had.
I’m not really sure how it started. Standing on the side of our church’s “big room,” a group of my wife’s friends and I were discussing artificial physical enhancement.
Admit it, you just thought “breast implants” (or some variation of that theme).
Apparently, everybody does. Unsurprisingly, breast implants became the conversation fulcrum, and I found it interesting that the girls found it and liposuction so much different than braces, tattoos, mole removal, hair coloring, artificial or exposure tanning, laser hair removal, color contacts, teeth whitening, ear and body piercings, “false” teeth, and other procedures.
Grace was extended to people who’d had various medical procedures or accidents and wanted to restore wholeness to their damaged bodies. A pass was given for people who got procedures that only their spouse would see. So, plastic surgery itself wasn’t the evil.
It wasn’t the price of such elective beautification. My brother’s new mouth cost more than the price I saw advertised on Los Angeles billboards for Hollywood-size cleavage. I’ve spent about $6,000 since leaving college on YMCA and Gold’s Gym memberships for my wife and me. Get a couple sleeves at any respectable parlor, and tell me that invoice couldn’t get you a semester (or more) at community college. Even for the smaller procedures, we still have to weigh the cost of our vanity and what it costs to rescue a prostitute from sex slavery in third world countries.
It wasn’t the fact that God’s creation is being adjusted, marred, or otherwise altered. Nobody in the conversation had problems with the entry-level modifications.
Maybe, it was the ostentation. Only wealthy people can afford such upgrades or corrections. And modesty is usually not high on the priority list for cup-bumping models, actresses, bar tenders, reality show stars, and college chicks.
It’s just interesting to me where I and other people draw our differing lines and how those lines seem to sprout into moral boundaries. I’m not pointing fingers, as I do it, too. I find Heidi Montag and Michael Jackson sad. I feel there’s something wrong there on the inside to force people to pitiable extremes.
And that emotion begs the questions we hit this morning standing in rows of padded chairs, questions like: do smaller scale enhancements come from a good place or bad place in our hearts? Are we seeking artificial approval? Are we more concerned with what people see with their eyes than what they see with their intuitions? Are we wearing the clothes and hairstyles we do for others or for ourselves?
If we’re honest with ourselves, our culture-induced insecurities often inform our purchases and behavior. For some, that’s a pair of saline-filled breasts; for others that’s a Saleen edition Mustang. For many, that’s a perfect row of teeth, for others a row of awards.
So, the sorority student who stretches her skin is no different than me wanting to lay a stretch of (expensive) rubber on the road in front of friends. The cougar who has bypassed nature with liposuction is guilty of some of the same driving factors that would have me bypassing my credit card balance and good stewardship to join iPad nation right now.
Does that mean we pull a John the Baptist and pass on showers and shaving, haircuts and deodorant? Does that mean we can’t own and wear and drive nice things? Do we default to burqas and horse-drawn buggies?
I don’t know where the line is biblically speaking, other than motive and stewardship. That’s where we landed yesterday as the worship team disassembled in the background. Motives are an inside deal, the hardest part of behavior to change (for me, anyway).
I like playing the American Dream game instead of praying before purchases. I like the way I feel in the designer shirt I bought Saturday, apparently more than I would have in an unadorned tee shirt while mailing the cost difference to my missionary buddy in China. I like how I look in the mirror after a mile swim at the Y pool or after spiking my hair into a fohawk and donning my suit and power tie for a seminar presentation.
I doubt I’m alone with those moments and drives. The motive to be seen and recognized, accepted and respected dresses itself in all kinds of forms—some even in culturally-accepted and maybe even church community-accepted forms.
So, before we judge Ashley Simpson or Kat Von D, we need to look in the mirror. And before we judge ourselves, we should probably look in the “mirror of the Word.” It won’t be comfortable. But then again, neither is a buzzing, ink-tipped needle.
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Stock image purchased from iStockPhoto.com
