vanity

I had one uncomfortable moment when my cousins were visiting me.  Even growing up in the same extended family, we have very different attitudes about some things.  One of those “bones of contention” involves social media.  Other than my blog, I don’t participate in social media.  I do follow my children on Instagram, but strictly as a “creeper” to see the photos that my daughter-in-law posts of my adorable granddaughters and to read my daughter’s musings on motherhood, faith, fashion and food.  But I never have had a Facebook account. 

Others in my family love the connection that such forums allow them, and they post frequently.  One of the days that we were all together, we had an impromptu family photo taken, and I was asked if it could be posted on Facebook.  I wouldn’t be “tagged” since I don’t participate.  I didn’t care for the photo of me, but truth be told, I never like photos of me.  It takes a lot for me to feel presentable…a lot of hair product and eye makeup…and a lot of rejected shots, because I have a hard time remembering to look at the camera instead of the screen of the phone.  But I resigned myself that I wouldn’t be the one person to stop the others from sharing.

Later that night one of the ladies asked if someone else could share the photo.  I agreed again, but expressed that even though I was saying “yes”, I didn’t love it.  Suddenly the whole conversation seemed to revolve around me… why I felt that way, what my attitudes were about social media, what I could have or should have said when the photo was taken or when someone first asked about posting it.  I got more and more agitated…families can do that to you sometimes…and I said I was uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going.  Then I started shaking and crying and headed for my room.  I had just transferred my personal discomfort to five other women, who were completely blind-sided by my outburst.

I sat in my room until two of them came to get me.  And as I sat there reflecting on what had happened, I realized that I was vain.  There it was, my besetting sin (or one of many!)  Vanity was driving a wedge in between me and five women whom I love.  But you know how hard it is to reenter a social situation once you’ve made a scene.  EVERYONE wants to make it better.  They flatter and pet you and reassure you of how beautiful you are to them, which just makes it all worse, somehow.  What would it take to allow us to move on?

I would have to go out there and confess, pure and simple.  (I’m a self-confident woman…does it even matter what I look like?!)  I would have to disclose how vain I am…an emotion so pathetic and puny (particularly at this moment!) that I don’t even like to admit that I feel it or to talk about it.  Yuch!

But such is the power of confession:  we moved on.  In confession I absolved them of any lingering thought that they had caused my discomfort, even accidentally.  They had simply shined a light on my own vanity.  We all acknowledged it and let it go.  And I felt free to love and be loved by my closest and dearest and oldest friends…the women who have been part of my life since my birth. 

The proverb, “Confession is good for the soul” is attributed to the Scots.  (Being married to a man of Scottish descent, I know for a fact that they have a way with words).  But confession, simple, direct, and honest, is also good for community…provided the confessor doesn’t overshare or confess someone else’s sin.  There’s another old saying:  “There’s a time and a place for everything.”  This was God’s time and place.

What is a “besetting sin”?  I think of it as a default mode in your personality…the setting to which you automatically default when not being really intentional.  The Seven Deadly Sins of the Christian faith are usually listed as Pride, Greed, Envy, Sloth, Anger, Gluttony and Lust.  But I think there are more, or at lease subsets of these that rear their ugly heads in our lives in times like this:  pernicious anxiety and fear, gossip, superiority, vanity, idolatry ….maybe you could add a few of your own.

One of my spiritual friends who is also a therapist recently told me that he has seen two responses to Covid 19 among his clients:  panic and prayer.  But he confessed to me that he has recognized that his response is an overconfidence in his own resilience.  He’s been on the mission field and camping all his life.  He’s relied on resourcefulness to get him by.  And he now realizes that resourcefulness is not the same as faith.

Lent is a season when we are called to self-examination.  But let’s be honest, usually we are so busy that we don’t take the time to do that interior work.  This year our calendars have suddenly been cleared. (For some with children at home this actually makes us busier than ever!)  We’ve also come face-to-face with our inadequate default modes.  What is yours?  Will you use this time to search your soul for the answer?

This year during Lent I had a hard time deciding what to give up.  But now I know.  For the last two weeks of Lent I’m going to stop wearing make-up.  And since Easter will not be the usual celebration, I am going to maintain that fast until we’ve all been resurrected from our social distancing tombs. 

Love, Liz

Oil painting by Isabel Bishop, American, 1902-1988