not getting carded at Total Wine. I've always been told I look really young for my age (I'm 27.) When I don't get carded buying wine I feel like I must be looking really haggard. The employees at Total Wine are hardcore about checking IDs. William and I were browsing around and sipping samples at the promo table when the man behind the counter carded a girl that I thought looked older than me. On the way out, I told William I must look really awful today. Trying to be helpful, he told me that the man was just trying to flirt with the girl. So to me that meant, I looked positively over 30 and not nice enough to flirt with! William, rolling his eyes, told me I was obviously with him, so why would the man bother? True enough, but still... a small blow to the old pride.
So I am sitting here, sipping the chardonnay we bought, wondering why I'm so concerned about how old people think I am. It used to annoy the crud out of me when, in my young 20's, people mistook me for a teenager. My students' parents still often tell me I blend in with my students when I'm out in the hall with them before school. Now I find it kind of flattering even though sometimes I don't mind when I look my age. But other times, like today, it ticks me right off. As with most conundrums, I have to ask myself, why in the world does it bother me when people recognize me as being definitely over 21?
Our assistant pastor has been praying almost every Sunday from the pulpit that we would not be a people who worship and seek after youthfulness and health as an end in itself. Our culture idolizes youth and health. Ads in magazines tout various creams and potions to fight aging, or the appearance thereof. Fitness is hawked as another way to live longer and look younger. Why is aging looked upon so badly, and why does the world hate it so much? I think a large part of it is the worldview that this is all there is, so you might as well look your best, feel your best, do your best, you you you. It always comes back to the individual experience, the life you "deserve." Someone once said that this world is the closest to heaven the lost will ever get, and the closest to hell that Christians will ever get. Perhaps it's a sense, and a fear, of eternity that makes the world want to hold on to whatever ties them to this earth and prolong their days. It's the best they're going to get. The truth, for Christians, is that each day that goes by is one less we have to wait to see our Savior. To be remade perfectly, to never age, to have no capacity to sin, to be able to love Jesus perfectly. WHY would I want to slow that down?
1 comment:
I didn't get carded at Total Wine this past Saturday - wine tasting or otherwise. I was with my fiance's mother, but I felt the same way. <3
Post a Comment