- John Lithgow
I turned 47 this month.
47 is not a benchmark birthday, but it is bothering me anyway. Probably because there are other indications that I am aging and I am not ready for them. I want to run away from my bothered-ness so I pick up a magazine. It informs me that flawless skin is in style this year. Isn't flawless skin always in style? I examine my skin. Hardly flawless. I am sporting age spots and pimples. It doesn't seem fair. When I was younger, I thought that by the time I had to face aging I would be mature enough to accept it graciously. Unfortunately, some days I am not.
The magazine did not help me, but Anne Lamott, did. In Bird by Bird she tells about Brother Lawrence, "a medieval monk who saw all of us as trees in winter, with little to give, stripped of leaves and color and growth, whom God loves unconditionally anyway." It is summer, but looking in the mirror I remind myself somewhat of a tree in winter.
Anne continues, "Dying people can teach us this most directly. Often the attributes that define them drop away - the hair, the shape, the skills, the cleverness. and then it turns out that the packaging is not who that person has really been all along. Without the package another sort of beauty shines through."
That's it isn't it? The perspective I need. I am being gradually stripped, or at least I am afraid I will be stripped of some of my outer trappings. Some people are stripped suddenly through illness or injury. I am afraid to go without those trappings. The stripping is necessary though, because flawless skin and a firm belly can hide some of the real essence, the real beauty, some of the Christ in me. So, if that is what it takes, I am willing. Or, maybe more honestly, I want to be willing but I still am not quite there.
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