蜜芽传媒

Good morning. I was faced yesterday morning by a large picture of Lady Gaga on the front page of my newspaper. She had long pigtails flying out either side of her strangely made up face with the headline 鈥淏raidy Gaga鈥�. The subtitle told us that she was 鈥渄ressed to impress with a hairstyle to turn heads.鈥� Strangely enough, just a few minutes before I had been reading a little known passage in the New Testament in which the writer gives instruction for women members of the congregation. It said 鈥淒o not adorn yourselves outwardly by braiding your hair and by wearing gold ornaments or fine clothing; rather, let your adornment be your inner self, with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is very precious in God鈥檚 sight.鈥� We have wonderful portraits and statues of the elegant women the writer had in mind with their braided hair and jewels from Pompeii and elsewhere in the Roman world. They were as aware of style then as we are now. And of course it isn鈥檛 just women. Young men can be as fashion conscious as anyone.

As I read that verse my first thought was, well if everyone acted on it the whole fashion industry would collapse overnight. Those involved in the manufacture of clothes, shoes, handbags, jewellery, and stylists of all kind would go bust. For so much of our behaviour is calculated, as the paper put about Lady Gaga, to impress others and turn heads- all part of the way we project a self-image to do just that. It is absurd, by my lights, to pay hundreds of pounds for a fashionable handbag or pair of shoes. But that world does provide employment, creativity, amusement and a chance for people to express themselves. It all adds to the general gaiety of the nations. Nor do I want people to go around looking drab and shoddy. But I cannot escape the truth in the text- that what matters is the lasting beauty of the inner self, which is precious in God鈥檚 sight, as it puts it.

So there is a continuing tension in all of us between our desire to impress others, not just in what we are wearing, or the way we look, but in every aspect of our lives-cars, houses, position, salary, reputation and so on- and those important values we are aware of in our more reflective moments. The tension does not lessen just by becoming religious or ascetic or puritanical. It just means that the desire to impress can take on more, insidious forms, like wanting to appear holier than others. Nor does it disappear just by getting old. I was reminded of some words of the late Malcolm Muggeridge who once compared life to a voyage on a cruise liner. When you embark you worry if you will have a comfortable cabin, whether you will be invited to sit at the captain鈥檚 table, and who are the more interesting an important passengers. As you get ready to disembark, he said, the prospect of death overshadows everything else, and all this seems absurd. Yes, quite absurd but whilst we are still In Via, on the voyage, it is still the same old me that I have to deal with.

First broadcast 12 June 2015

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