beautiful are the girls...

As I have mentioned before, I live in the land of the beautiful people. That, of course, is Baylor University. As I type this at Common Grounds, the three people closest to me in proximity are all girls. And ALL THREE OF THEM are beautiful. And I don't use that term lightly. I don't just mean cute or mildly attractive. One is a striking brunette with amazing green eyes (they look like contacts made to be the color of the Caribbean ocean). She is sitting to my left. To my right are two girls on the same couch. The one closest to me is a ridiculously attractive brunette with blue eyes that make me want to hit my head against the wall. And the third is a blond with subtly curly hair. I can't tell what her eyes are like from here, but no matter, she is beautiful.

I have come to expect this sort of world in the last three years here at Baylor. Its not the real world. I am not sure what kind of lala land we can call this. But I know it will not be the same in Maryland. And to be honest, I am not sure if I am sad or glad about this. On the one hand, it will be easier on my attempts to be a man of God who retains some sort of holiness about him. On the other hand, its like leaving Hawaii or the Rockies. You know the beauty just won't be the same. The visual picture of your world somehow lessens a bit.

Oh well, I will enjoy it for the next few weeks. I am tired of people rolling their eyes at me when I speak of beauty. As if I am some sort of lustful heathen or a typical shallow-Hal. Neither are the case. I just enjoy beautiful things. God has created beauty in this world for us to enjoy. For too long our Puritan roots have stifled this ability to enjoy what God has created. Of course taken too far can lead to lust. But not taken at all can lead to lust as well. Let me explain.

If I can't enjoy these three beautiful girls for the visual delight that they are, then I would have to pretend they don't exist or that their beauty is wrong. As I try to suppress the perfectly fine desire to enjoy beauty, it tries to bust out of the chains in aberrant forms. One such disfunctional liberation comes in the form of lust. Lust objectifies women as objects of sex. This often happens because guys can't seem to see women as something else, something more natural, something more pure. I think if Christian fellas could learn to appreciate beauty for what it is, God's Creation, it could cut down on the lust factor.

When I enjoy the beauty of a flower for its own sake and because it is a masterful creation of God, I move away from the tendency to want to own or dominate it. If I can wonder at the beauty of mountains, its harder for me to scheme about the profits of mining. If I can glory in the beauty of a flower grown in the wild, I may be less likely to try to pick it and make it my own. And the same is true for humanity as a creation of God. If I can appreciate the beauty in these ladies to my right and left, then I am distancing myself from the desire to selfishly lust after them.