I rediscovered a pretty nifty word: Uglified, which obviously means to make ugly.
Triggered by its movie version which I watched recently on HBO, I re-read "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (the Chronicles of Narnia series), and got entranced once more by the magical places and characters created by C.S. Lewis.
One of the Narnian queens, Lucy, asks the Magician (about the Duffers he previously made invisible because they were foolish):
"And now that they are visible, are you going to let them off being ugly? Will you make them as they were before?"
"Well, that's rather a delicate question," replies the Magician. "You see, it's only they who think they were so nice to look at before. They say they've been uglified, but that isn't what I called it. Many people think the change was for the better."
Ugly. Beautiful. Who's to say we're one or the other? You'll hear conflicting voices.
White colored people say that black is beautiful. Darker ones would rather be white. Many Pinays dream of snaring Caucasians, to improve the race they say; and turn their backs on chocolatey males, even if they're hunks.
Those with button or flared breathers wouldn't mind going through the knife for a more aquiline nose. My very Asian-looking student intimated that her eyelids have been slit for a more deep-set effect.
Yahoo news recently showed a celebrity's daughter imploring her Mom, "Enough!" because she worried about the latter's incessant trips to the plastic surgeon.
Replied the famous Mom: "But my body is a temple and I need to maintain the beauty of this temple."
Looking at her unmade-up face, one would be quick to conclude that all those human interventions have desecrated her temple, turning her face from beautiful to pitifully awful. Enough already or the temple will crumble!
Besides, the temple she said she wanted to tend like a garden, is destined anyway to dehydrate, sag and shrink further---a sure uglification process.Who can escape that?
Triggered by its movie version which I watched recently on HBO, I re-read "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (the Chronicles of Narnia series), and got entranced once more by the magical places and characters created by C.S. Lewis.
One of the Narnian queens, Lucy, asks the Magician (about the Duffers he previously made invisible because they were foolish):
"And now that they are visible, are you going to let them off being ugly? Will you make them as they were before?"
"Well, that's rather a delicate question," replies the Magician. "You see, it's only they who think they were so nice to look at before. They say they've been uglified, but that isn't what I called it. Many people think the change was for the better."
Ugly. Beautiful. Who's to say we're one or the other? You'll hear conflicting voices.
White colored people say that black is beautiful. Darker ones would rather be white. Many Pinays dream of snaring Caucasians, to improve the race they say; and turn their backs on chocolatey males, even if they're hunks.
Those with button or flared breathers wouldn't mind going through the knife for a more aquiline nose. My very Asian-looking student intimated that her eyelids have been slit for a more deep-set effect.
Yahoo news recently showed a celebrity's daughter imploring her Mom, "Enough!" because she worried about the latter's incessant trips to the plastic surgeon.
Replied the famous Mom: "But my body is a temple and I need to maintain the beauty of this temple."
Looking at her unmade-up face, one would be quick to conclude that all those human interventions have desecrated her temple, turning her face from beautiful to pitifully awful. Enough already or the temple will crumble!
Besides, the temple she said she wanted to tend like a garden, is destined anyway to dehydrate, sag and shrink further---a sure uglification process.Who can escape that?
Forgive the cliche, but beauty is really in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder usually views others through his own biased or tinted lenses.
Jesus says that what comes from the inside is what makes people ugly.
Mark 15:18: But the things that come out from the mouth come from the heart, and these make the man unclean. Mark 7:21: For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery.
Such thoughts are the filters too through which we judge others, that's why we see ugly or beautiful, despicable or desirable.
God sees more than our exterior. He sees our hearts. That's what we should be more concerned about. Definitely beautify your veneer and upkeep your "temple" because it is the dwelling place of God.
But He alone can thoroughly give you a makeover within so that we can see others not with veiled eyes but through the eyes of Jesus. Then maybe, also, others would regard us differently.
"There's something different about you. You look so peaceful," a friend said to a long lost friend when they bumped into each other in the mall.
"It's all because of His grace," replied the latter, and informed her that her husband just passed away.
Jesus says that what comes from the inside is what makes people ugly.
Mark 15:18: But the things that come out from the mouth come from the heart, and these make the man unclean. Mark 7:21: For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery.
Such thoughts are the filters too through which we judge others, that's why we see ugly or beautiful, despicable or desirable.
God sees more than our exterior. He sees our hearts. That's what we should be more concerned about. Definitely beautify your veneer and upkeep your "temple" because it is the dwelling place of God.
But He alone can thoroughly give you a makeover within so that we can see others not with veiled eyes but through the eyes of Jesus. Then maybe, also, others would regard us differently.
"There's something different about you. You look so peaceful," a friend said to a long lost friend when they bumped into each other in the mall.
"It's all because of His grace," replied the latter, and informed her that her husband just passed away.
Moses spent precious time with God in the mountain. He came down full of His glory.
There's no mistaking the Holy Spirit's glow if you spend time with God. It's light and life radiating from inside and reaches out to others through mouths, eyes, hearts and hands of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness; so that those around you could not help but think:
"There's something about Mary, and whatever it is, I want that too."
That's what it means to be beautified. That's what it means to have the fruit of the Spirit. Jesus alone can transform ugly to lovely!
The largest selling commodities in the country these days are age-defying products! They dislodged detergent bar, which every household needs. Oh, what have we become? Uglified indeed.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how hard a lot of people try to beautify, uglification is bound to happen. So why fight it when we can faith it. It's God's glory that brings in the glow.
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