Monthly Archives: October 2011

Beautiful People

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Yesterday’s post prompted thoughtful comments from readers, both visible on the site and invisible via the contact button. Apparently facial symmetry fascinates all of us and has much to do with how beautiful or handsome we appear to the general public.

Scientists and poll-takers have started a debate about perfect faces, joining plastic surgeons and make-up artists, who’ve already been there for decades. Researching on line, I learned that precious few people are born beautiful.

Brad Pitt and Kate Moss are supposedly two examples of perfection. Their faces have been measured by experts and found to be exactly even in feature dimensions. In other words, neither of them have a “bad side” when they walk Hollywood’s red carpet. It’s just all good.

My friend Terry, a mathematical genius, blog-commented that she’s also studied facial symmetry and has experimented with her high school students. “I had them bring in a picture of their faces as frontally dead-on as possible. Then they put a mirror down in the middle of the picture to see what they’d look like if they were symmetrical. Rarely did it improve the look.”

Fascinated, I went on line to check her statement, because scientists were claiming that all of us are naturally drawn to perfectly balanced faces. Louisa and I found web sites displaying celebrity photos in which a person’s good side was mirror-imaged and put in place of his/her bad side.

Terry was right. They all looked a little off, like an altered version of the faces we knew.

Terry went one observation further. In her classroom experiment with mirrors, she asked students to note the age-difference from one side to the other: “There’s an ‘old’ and a ‘young’ side to each face, depending on which way the mirror is facing, though it might not be apparent in the very old or very young.”

The most famous example of this is Abraham Lincoln’s face as carved in stone inside Washington DC’s Lincoln Memorial. I remember as a child, running from one side to the other, checking on what Dad had told us: “The sculptor wanted to show Lincoln’s inner struggle as president. One side looks old and exhausted, representing war. The other looks youthful and rested, reflecting peace.” It was true, although from the front, Lincoln still looked like Lincoln.

The last comment Terry made, however, was the best: “Since the Holy of Holies and heaven itself are described as a perfect cube, I can only assume that all math will be redeemed in eternity, and perfect symmetry will be restored from the effects of the curse.”

Astounding thought!

And Terry, whether or not your face has two good sides, you’ve got Brad and Kate beat with your mathematical genius. That is both good and beautiful!

The angel “showed me the holy city. When he measured it, he found it was a square, as wide as it was long. In fact, its length and width and height were each 1,400 miles.” (Revelation 2:10,16)

Handmade is better.

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It took many years for me to realize one of my ears was lower than the other. But when every pair of glasses I ever bought tipped the same direction, I finally gave up criticizing the glasses and figured it was me.

In another dimension dilemma, one leg is longer than the other. If new slacks need shortening, one side always needs a tad more than the other. Eventually I was forced to acknowledge I was just plain crooked.

But that isn’t all bad. Instead it’s an indication I was handmade, just like pottery created on a wheel, a quilt made on a stretcher or a drinking glass blown by mouth. And that’s the definition of unique: no two alike.

Although we all love handmade when it comes to home decor and baked goods, faces are another matter. In that category we strive for parallel perfection, one side mirroring the other. Years ago I had a conversation with a plastic surgeon and asked about facial symmetry. “It doesn’t exist,” he said. I suspected as much.

People, especially women, kept him in business by paying him to rearrange their asymmetrical faces, altering one side or the other to make them match. Surgical changes are tricky, though, and despite precise scalpel work, perfection remains elusive.

God creates each of us unlike anybody else. He gave us unique fingerprints, already visible on the hands of an unborn baby at 14 weeks in utero. He also designs unique irises for each of us, and even our tongue prints are one-of-a-kind.

Individuality is important to God. He could simply “poof” us into existence but instead chooses to design us. According to Scripture, he personally makes “all the delicate parts” of our bodies (Psalm 139) with thought and supernatural effort, including our symmetry or asymmetry. Surely he could put together a bodily perfect human being, and yet he doesn’t. Might it have something to do with handing us opportunities to accept his will over our own? Or possibly offering us a chance to become content with less than perfection?

I’ve been remiss over the years, whining about my physical flaws to my kids. The result of that false pride was their inaccurate opinion that I was judging them the same way, which I wasn’t. But that was the prideful part, focusing on myself. With their patient corrections, I’ve stopped self-criticizing… at least audibly.

It occurred to me my dissatisfaction with the ways God has made me unique is probably disrespectful to him, maybe even disloyal, which makes me feel awful. I hope I can eventually get it through my crooked head that being handmade by God is an incredible gift, bi-level ears and all.

“My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.” (Psalm 139:15)

Dot to Dot

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When lightning streaks across the sky and we hear a clap of thunder, we see the lightning well ahead of hearing the sound. Of course there’s a scientific explanation for this, but it’s also a great illustration of how God answers prayer.

I think of the heartfelt longings parents have for their children, praying fervently over them for literally decades, waiting and waiting for results. We pray for the sick to be healed and for those suffering pain to be set free, but nothing happens. We cry out to God to save the lost and strengthen the weak. And widows beg him to rescue them from despondency, fear or loneliness. Why doesn’t he answer?

All of us can be overcome by discouragement when we pray and don’t see quick answers, but despite feeling that God doesn’t always hear us, he does. And he always answers. I believe as our prayers reach him, whether they’re uttered with eloquent words or tearful moans, he puts his answers into motion right then.

I like to picture my life on a timeline. A dot somewhere on the line represents my current dilemma and my plea for God’s help. He immediately places another dot on the line representing his answer, but not necessarily right next to where I am. From my spot, I can’t see his dot, but it’s sitting there, down the line.

Day by day I move closer to his dot, his answer. During moments when I feel he hasn’t heard or maybe doesn’t care, I tell myself the dot is perched somewhere ahead of me, awaiting my arrival. Just knowing I’ll eventually come to it causes me to wait better.

From God’s vantage point, the entire time line in visible, starting with the dot representing my birth to the one marking my death. He’s interested in what happens all along the line, not just at any one point. If I don’t see or hear him immediately after I pray, this should never be cause for doubting that he has already acted on my behalf.

Scripture is full of references to the proper timing of events: “about that time, when the time had come, in the fullness of time, at the appointed time, in the course of time.” We’ve all heard the expression, “Timing is everything,” and of course God’s timing is never off. We may not like where he puts his answer-dot, but his placement is made with precision and purpose.

As sure as lightning follows thunder, his answers will follow our prayers… even though they may not come lightning-fast.

“In my distress I called to the Lord; I called out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came to his ears. Out of the brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth. The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.” (2 Samuel 22:7,13-14,17)