The Accomplishment of Appearance

We live in America, and as such we are surrounded by an ideology – appearance is everything. Most of us have probably heard many times that we should not judge people by their appearance but instead should look past the way a person looks to view them in light of their character. Most of us have probably not only heard it but agree with it. Yet despite our own conviction in the matter we continue to do it because it is ingrained in us by our culture to judge by appearance. Benjamin Button was a recipient of this judgment because in a world that believes that appearance is everything, Benjamin Button was dealt a poor hand.

There were countless times in Benjamin Button’s life that he was cast out because of his appearance. When he had de-aged to a small child his appearance caused his son to treat him more like a child than a father. When he appeared to be a teenager he was treated as a teenager despite his honorary status of general in the military. There was one instance that I feel gives even greater insight into the mindset that “appearance is everything.”

How many times have we looked at someone and thought to ourselves, “That guy is too old to do that.” Benjamin Button knew exactly what it was like to be thought of that way. He had been alive for 18 years but his appearance told the registrar at Yale College that he was 50. His appearance meant more to the registrar than any words or evidence that Benjamin could have supplied and he told him to leave at the thought of a 50 year old freshman. What intrigues me is that the culture of that time period said that older people could not start a college education and by judging only Benjamin Button’s appearance, the registrar concluded that Benjamin was too old for college; but his decision was basically influenced completely by culture. We do exactly the same thing today. Our culture tells us that if people dress a certain way then they cannot belong to a certain group, if they look too old then they cannot be cool, and if they are not super thin then they are not beautiful; and we reinforce this cultural idea… even on this campus. But what if we obeyed Romans 12:2 and did not conform to the thinking patterns of this culture? The results might be opposite of those of Benjamin Button - a man who accomplished many great things: owning a top business, becoming a football star, becoming a general, and having a family; but in the eyes of the people around him nothing meant more than the “accomplishment” of his appearance. Is SEU culture destined to treat others the same as the world treated Benjamin Button?

The Virtue of Suffering

An excerpt from “Sonny’s Blues” –

“But there’s no way not to suffer – is there, Sonny?”

“I believe not,” he said and smiled, “but that’s never stopped anyone from trying.” … “No, there’s no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it, to keep on top of it, and to make it seem – well like you.”…

“But we just agreed,” I said, “that there’s no way not to suffer. Isn’t it better, then, just to – take it?”

“But nobody just takes it,” Sonny cried, “that’s what I’m telling you! Everybody tries not to. You’re just hung up on the way some people try – it’s not your way!” (Baldwin 404).

This passage struck me with a magnitude much greater than the rest of the text. It was the center of all my thoughts about this story. It puts into focus a connection shared among all of humanity: we all suffer. This was the starting point of a question that was developing in the back of my mind, but this question was not brought to surface until Mrs. DeBorde led our class into a discussion on the virtue of suffering. She brought to light our own ideas about suffering based on our social conditioning. In American culture, to avoid suffering, or even to pretend, is viewed as a virtue. To pretend that you do not suffer is to be strong. In some cultures, though, it may be that acknowledging suffering and battling through it is the greater virtue. The question that she helped direct my thoughts towards was this: How should Christians view the virtue of suffering? Romans 5:3-5 says, “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

In the excerpt from “Sonny’s Blues,” Sonny says “there’s no way not to suffer.” - agreed. But he also says that we all try to escape it, it is just a matter of how – it is here that I part with him. In developing my Christian ideas about the virtue of suffering I came to a conclusion: human nature, “our flesh,” may naturally move away from suffering, but it is not true that we always try to escape suffering. As Christians, as we walk in the Spirit, we do not try to escape suffering but embrace it with joy, knowing that our sufferings are earning for us an eternal reward.

The greatest virtue of suffering – to embrace it with joy.

Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” The Literary Experience. Ed. Bruce Beiderwell and Jeffrey M. Wheeler. Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. 384-410. Print.

The Measure of Greatness

“For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.” To be known and remembered: it sounds so wonderful. It appeals to me. I desire to leave behind a legacy. But I cannot help but to see that I am wrong in it. I seek to be remembered, yet in remembrance of me, Christ is forgotten. I seek to be known for something long after my soul has departed this earth, but as I strive for my own fame, I have come to know two things. As long as my goal in life is to be remembered for something great, I will never attain something great enough to be remembered for, and I will never be the man that God intends for me to be. No one whose name has been passed down through history wearing the garments of greatness has ever sought to do so, because to be focused on self takes away from the nature of greatness. It is those who focused on someone or something other than themselves that were carried through history by the tidal wave of fame. But many great men and women never were remembered for their greatness, yet I say they did leave behind a legacy, but their legacy was not their own. It is the legacy of a man they spent their lives making famous instead of themselves. Everyone these people met knew who they loved. Everyone knew that they found their greatest joy in making much of Jesus Christ. Will I be known the same?