Veneer of
Character
"You can fool some of the people all of the
time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the
people all of the time."
A foreman
in a large eastern NC furniture factory told this writer, "I can take any
type wood, even the cheapest wood and with paint and texturizing, make it look
like any wood you might desire...pecan, walnut, oak, cherry, etc." So,
when you go to a funeral and see a fine, expensive, walnut casket, OR go into a
well furnished home, there may just be antique cherry-pecan-oak pieces of
furniture. With caskets, furniture or even paneling, impressing with fakery. Antique dealers learn early not to get taken.
For one who appreciates fine things, old wood-prints, an easy costly venture is
to buy what appears to be an old print in an old antique frame just to find
that the glass in front of the print has been painted with varnish, the frame a
very good copy of an original.
The greatest
challenge to the bioethicist, making decisions about the veneers of character
because fakery involves more than things. "For thou hast possessed my
reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am
fearfully [and] wonderfully made: marvelous [are] thy works; and [that] my soul
knoweth right well" (Psalm
139:13-14).
Life, living, involves what you
have and what you wish to have. Many times, dealing with the toxins of others.
Hitler's
German Nazi party was controlled by homosexuals. The gay agenda, now, always, to
mark people...bring out differences. The gay is so afraid that someone will not
recognize that he is homosexual. There was a time that they went into the
closet, that people actually tried to hide sins, many times in the church
house. Now, with bravo and brutality, unashamed, sin and its co-conspirators on
display. The great Preacher George Lofton's sermon, "Bed too short,
blanket too narrow" said, "Something is going to always stick
out."
In South
America, this world traveler met a German-Jewish couple who had survived the
death camp at Auschwitz. Both still had their
prisoner numbers tattooed on their arms. They were not ashamed of the brutality
of the prison camp, talked to me about it, but the wife always wore a long
sleeved dress to hide the scars of human depravity...branding because of
race-religion.
My driver
was driving me to my beach house he said, "I wish you could see the girl
in front of us on a bicycle, she is tattooed from her neck to her ankles. (The
girl obviously had on shorts or a bathing suit.)
The
psychologist-psychiatrist, and certainly parents of exceptional children (some
children are born with deformities, infirmities, or just inherit genes to be
obese or otherwise unattractive-crippled, unusual skin, cleft pallets, etc.)
learn early the challenge of dealing with our creator's sovereignty. Many children of color spend their entire
lives dealing with the color of their skin while other young people desire to
be different-even flamboyant.
In the
Himalayan kingdom
of Bhutan, this world traveler
observed that women had large, round, metal rings in their noses. Among some African, South American tribes,
piercings are a matter of culture, even racially-religiously expected...a form
of adornment.
In my
lifetime, women and even boys dying their hair in bizarre colors such as bright
red, purple, green. In my lifetime, objects pierced into facial areas. One
dentist told me of his problems with pierced tongues or lips. "Normal"
people can not imagine such insanity. As these young people age, and if they
keep living they will age, just the normal muscle changes of the body,
piercings, tattoos will become an ugly veneer on skin.
Insurance
companies in physical examinations are very leery of tattoos. It is so obvious
to anyone except the uninformed that anyone who will subject their OWN body to
the poisons of tattoo color, will not be very careful in other health care
activity.
Some of my
younger female employees have talked about how they love their tattoos. I
wonder if they will love them so much when they are matrons, 60-70-80,
stretched and wrinkled, their grandchildren's inquisitions. ("Grandma, why
do you have that ugly tramp stamp on your arm?") God warned the children
of Israel
about marking the skin. "Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for
the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I [am] the LORD" (Leviticus 19:28).
Would it
not be wonderful if in the wisdom of man's thinking (1 Corinthians 1:25) every person were 100% perfect...healthy,
wealthy, wise...genes for tallness, thinness, Mensa IQ? God chose us,
magnificently designed, as we are. It is up to us to do the best we can with
what we have, to always give the very best "VERSION" of ourselves. Our
bodies are temples, not dumpsters. (Health depends on nutrition, exercise, rest.)
Our lives here on earth, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy
strength: this [is] the first commandment. And the second [is] like, [namely]
this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment
greater than these. " (Mark 12:30-31,
Deuteronomy 6:5).
God is not blind, deaf,
uninformed, you need him more than he needs you. God is capable of cleaning up
any type veneer, he is in the restoration business, even human freak shows.
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