psychic debt

Just when we think that our cultural obsession with looks can't get any worse, a terribly sad and tragic story like this comes along:

Florida high school senior Stephanie Kuleba had everything going for her -- she was the well-liked captain of her varsity cheerleading team at West Boca High School, and she had been accepted to the University of Florida, where she hoped to study medicine. The 18-year-old's promising life was cut short Saturday after she suffered what doctors believe was a fatal reaction to anesthesia during breast augmentation surgery.

I know what your probably thinking right now, "Oh no, another one of those pontifications about the shallowness of American culture and how beauty is only skin deep..."

Well... yes and no.

Yes, this is what that is in the sense that we should all pause after stories like this and take our eyes and minds off of the pixelled, sculpted and airbrushed images on our blue tubes and flat screens, pray for the family of this girl and ask ourselves, "What is real?" Or how about this question, "Why are we like this?"

And then no, this isn't going to be a simple pontification of how we have veered tragically and horribly from our moral bearings because I just want to make one simple point today that is related to this subject- and that is that the beauty we think we are looking for is not the beauty we think it is. At least, what most people think it is.

To the question of "what is real", the answer is that there is the reality that people create in their minds and hearts and then there is the reality of the creation and the creator. The former is the one that comes out of a heart of idolotry and sin and the latter, according to the Bible, is the true essence of life (See Romans 1:20-27). The meaning of life is the result of overcoming the one in favor of the other. The above story is just the latest tragic example of the manifestation of this truth.

To the question of "why are we like this?", the answer is that we seek something deep within ourselves that has been encoded into our very being. It is a part of our essence to the degree that it is nearly impossible to detect without some one or some thing pointing us to it. And that is that we all have an intense desire to "matter". The English word "matter" carries with it the connotation of "weight" or "significance". We want to know that our lives have substance and weightiness or to use another old English word, "worth".

To test this theory, isn't it true of you that you will only look at yourself in the mirror when you know you are at a certain angle, or when it is safe to look? Do you ever catch yourself off guard and wonder who that person is looking back at you? Isn't it true that you quickly discard the bad pictures of yourself? Or maybe it isn't so much the way you look, maybe it is the way you are perceived by others that is important- like the way your mind is seen, or you power or importance. The simple fact is we never really look at our own weakness because we can't bear the idea of seeing ourselves any different from the way we are self-perceived.

I heard recently that the debilitating effect of leporacy is not just that it destroys nerve endings, but that the nerve endings in our body work with our brain so that we are constantly and subconsciously adjusting even the way we apply pressure to certain points of our feet so that we never really land the same way twice- thus protecting the bottom of our feet. With this mechanism destroyed, the foot quickly deteriorates and the skin and tissue in our feet rots.

I believe that in a similar way, we are constantly making adjustments to our view of self so that we don't have to face the hard truth that every face is turning to dust and every muscle is turning to mush. We protect ourselves for the purpose of holding up the powerful and innate desire for significance and eternity and worth. The adjustments are so subconscious and so automatic that we don't even really know it is happening.

And then a story like the one above comes along and we are temporarily shocked. But then it isn't long before we go back into our denial and live blissfully idolotrous wihtout ever making the connections to our own fallenness.

At the heart of the issue is worship.

When we say we "worship" we are saying we are giving "worth". When this deep seated and barely conscious desire for signficance and worth is directed in to the heart of self, the result is very destructive. And this is where the most intense spiritual battles are waged in the human heart.

Several years ago in a New York Times article entitled "Look at Me, Look at Me, PLEASE Look at Me," Guy Trebay made this observation after attending a fashion show in New York City,

Models do not think they are too skinny. Actors do not find themselves handsome. Stars claim not to know what all the fuss is about. Our crazy cultural obsession with the perfected surface has become so absolute that everybody ends up having to work off some obscure psychic debt.

And so what is the answer? The answer is that we come to understand that the Beauty we are looking for is not the one we try to find in ourselves.

We look to another Beauty.

Jesus was the ultimate glory and beauty. You and I can't look at the sun without it destroying us, and yet His beauty was trillions and trillions of times more glorious than the sun. And yet in Philippians 2 the Bible says He gave it up and humbled Himself by going to cross. He was rejected by men to the degree that men could not look at Him... He was cosmically disregarded by the Father... He was cast out and spit on and cursed... He lost everything and took the weight of our sin in the ugliness and horror of the cross so that we could be taken in. So that we could be beautiful in the sight of the Father.

When we can come to place in our lives where we see that when God sees us, He sees us as His beauty and glory because of what Jesus did on the cross, it changes everything.

And then and only then, has the psychic debt been paid.