the lesson of the egyptian condor

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. -Proverbs 31:30

I saw a lot of people in the gym today I haven't seen before. Tis the season for getting all that Christmas cheer off your waste line.

In a worship planning meeting the other day we got off on the subject of looks. Someone told the story about a local preacher who has his own hair dresser follow him around before he preaches. Yeah- you guessed it, this digressed to all kinds of crude remarks about how their preacher certainly doesn't need that kind of attention.

Someone then made the observation that life in Christ really should make you beautiful in a meaningful sense. That living well and taking care of the temple God has given you and the result of the fruit of the Spirit in you should certainly result in a more orderly, beautiful life. But come on... hair dressers following you around? (Although I could use someone to powder my head occasionally).

I remember when my son was about 2 years old, I walked into our bathroom and found him sitting down staring at himself in the mirror. He had no expression on his face. It wasn't a look of admiration or horror, it was just a curious stare- as if to say, "who am I?"

It is quite natural in us, isn't it? According to the consumer trends online magazine, Euromonitor, the cosmetics industry has enjoyed an almost unfathomable 45% increase in the past six years!

The world is spending a LOT more money on appearance.

But hey, this has been going on for at least 10,000 years. The wisdom of Solomon above was written hundreds of years before Christ. Cosmetics has it's roots in ancient Egypt, where many thousands of years ago men and women alike applied cosmetics to enhance their looks.

"They applied green to their lower eyelids, then black or dark gray to their eyelashes and upper eyelids. And keeping with their spiritual beliefs, the dark colors were designed not only to enhance their appearance, but to ward off evil eyes."

In a kind of weird irony, Nature magazine is reporting that a type of vulture native to (of course) Egypt, is so serious about impressing the opposite sex, that it eats animal dung to change it's looks. I'm not making this up, according to this article, male Egyptian Condors actually stuff themselves with animal droppings until it literally turns their face yellow- apparantly a real turn on to female Egyptian vultures.

This article reminds me of a college roommate who used to put liver powder, skim milk, raw eggs and whey protein in a blender after working out. With a great burst of will power, he would down the entire blender in one outrageous gulp.

Birds of the feather flock together

All of this as a simple reminder- physical exercise has some value, but godliness is valuable in every way. It holds promise for the present life and for the life to come. (1 Timothy 4:8)