I was shopping at Ross yesterday, which caused me to face one of my pet peeves--mirrors. It's bad enough walking by the store and catching, what I hoped would be my own reflection, instead I saw what appeared to be an upright blimp wearing my clothes. Inside the store there are many mirrors and, in most of those, for better or for worse, I looked like the person I recognize in the mirrors at home. However, in the changing room where I tried on a dress, that mirror made me look like a lumpy Beluga whale in drag. The problem is, the varying shapes and lighting of mirrors and windows can distort the reflection, kind of like in a fun house, minus the fun.
Another, probably more significant, source of distortion is the viewer. Sometimes our reflections look heavier in the shop window because we know what we just ate inside the shop. This is guilt distortion, the fun house mirror that makes us look short and fat. Our cultural distortion is the mirror that shows a tall, thin reflection, setting that as the standard for all beauty.
I am waiting for the GM recall of defective dressing room mirrors, the kind that may cause you to crash. .diet. Meanwhile I remember that believers are called to reflect the image of Christ to the world. Sometimes Christians distort that image by our own defects, sometimes it is distorted by the biases of the viewer. Wisely, God left his image in creation and the Bible, so reflecting Christ is not dependent on his flawed followers alone. Still, in many ways the impact of Christ's image within our culture depends on us--the mirror.
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