Moth to Flame

Beauty does have power and like all power it can abuse and corrupt. Take Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch. It's bad enough he defends the store's policy of not carrying any clothing for plus size women, but he demands those who work for him in submissive positions -- his housekeepers, the cabin crew for his private jet, and his drivers -- come from his own modeling agency and adhere to the advertising "look"  of A&F: all must wear the polo, blue jean, underwear, and flip flops of an A&F ad with a spritz of cologne. The beauty of people on television or in magazine ads is exceptional so unless you live in LA and frequent only the "in" places, beauty of that scale is for the few and not for the rest of us. I am not Angelina Jolie and neither do I work with someone of her beauty in any of my circles. Ever. Yes there are attractive people in my office, some are my patients and others my clients but none of them come close to looking as good as A & F ad or the hundreds of others in Hollywood. No Brad Pitts or George Clooney types either.

And yet, these are the people ad agencies what us to aspire to. Let's be honest. Truthfully, we aspire to them. We are our own worst enemies. We then parade these ads to young people and the cycle of desire and self-loathing starts all over again. No wonder the Buddhist adage of "we all become what we hate," rings so true. How can we not be miserable when our hopes are impossible dreams of physical beauty.

Then there is aging as OLD Jeffries is discovering. Aging has a way of making us all look the same unless one choses the plastic surgery route as Jeffries has done.
 Then its old and creepy looking.

Jesus, the Buddha and other mystics rejected physical beauty as power and instead embraced the power of Love. And why is Love powerful? Because its source cannot be corrupted or abused. The Love from God heals the sick, brings comfort to the grief-stricken, food to the hungry and hope to the heartbroken. This Love does not seek physical beauty but radical kindness, life-changing compassion and inner humility.

Why have I worked as a hospice chaplain for children and adults all these years? Because as the body decays due to aging or cancer, the inner light of the dying person shines brighter. I am a moth to the flame.