Ugly Is As Ugly Sees

Dr. James L. Snyder

I was drinking a cup of coffee in the middle of the shopping mall. I don’t like going to shopping malls, but The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage sent me to get a new dress shirt for Sundays.

I told her I could wear the same one I wore last year, but she has different ideas about the dress code.

I was drinking coffee to settle my nerves and then pick up a dress shirt for the year. I don’t know why I need one every year because they all look the same to me, but The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage supervises my dress code.

While enjoying my coffee for a moment, I watched people as they walked by. It took me a while, but I began noticing the people walking by me.

One person was walking toward me, and I almost fainted. I have seen ugly people before, but this one baked the cake. Maybe it was my glasses, but I had never seen anybody as ugly as that before. Of course, I try not to look in my bathroom mirror.

Then, another person was coming my way who looked as ugly as the first person I saw. I begin to see ugly people all over the place. I didn’t know if I died and was transported to some planet or something but a lot of ugly people surrounded me.

I will admit that among these ugly people were some very nice-looking people, but there were not quite as many as I would have liked to see.

An older woman walked by very slowly, and I saw her face. From what I could tell, 50 years ago she had a complete facelift. I’m sure it looked okay at the time, but over the years, that beautiful face developed into a very ugly, wrinkly one.

I will never know why people have facelifts, tummy tucks, and all that kind of plastic stuff. When somebody young gets a facelift, they don’t realize that if they live for the next 50 years, they’re going to look very bad. A facelift is not forever.

I read about a woman going for a complete makeover. I don’t know what they call it, but it was going to cost her over $150,000. If I had $150,000, I would not put it on my face!

Why are people so obsessed with how they look? Why are looks so important to most people?

I thought about that as I sat there drinking my coffee, wondering how my life would change if I got a facelift, a tummy tuck, or whatever else they do.

The longer I sat there, the uglier people were as they walked by. But I got to thinking—maybe they were looking at me and thinking I was the ugliest person they’d seen all day. At that moment, whenever anybody walked by and looked at me, I smiled—just in case.

When I got home that night, I hung up my new shirt and went into the living room, where The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage was setting.

“Did you get the dress shirt I sent you to get?” She said very sarcastically.

“I did,” I said with a smile.

Then I sat down, looked at her, and said, “Do you think I should go and get a facelift? And if so, where do you recommend I ought to go?”

As soon as she calmed down from laughing, she said, “The recommendation I would give you is that antique store just around the block.” Then she laughed some more.

I was quiet for a moment, and then heard her say, “Is anything wrong with the mirror in your bathroom? Maybe you need to get a new mirror.”

Around our living room are pictures of our children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. Looking at them, I responded, “Aren’t those children cute? They look so lovely, don’t they?”

Of course, The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage was on my side with that and agreed that our grandkids were all very cute.

I then got serious and asked her, “What if some of them grow up to be as ugly as me?”

I heard a loud gasp from her side of the room, and when it quieted down, she said, “That’s not possible!”

I then went to my computer, where I had a bunch of photographs. I pulled up one and showed it to her. “What do you think of that picture?”

She looked at it and said, “That’s a very cute young boy.”

“That picture is of me when I was young. Now look at me.”

I brought up another cute picture and showed it to her. “Do you know who this is?”

She smiled and said, “That’s a picture of me when I was young.”

“I wonder,” I said sarcastically, “if ugly runs only in my family.”

All I heard from her side of the room was snickering, and I wasn’t going to ask any more questions.

“Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price” (1 Peter 3:3-4).

My heart is more important than my face.