Recently, via an Alumni website, I learned that “E” (not her real initial), the most beautiful woman in my freshman class in college, had died of cancer.
Since I was dating a friend of E’s, and we had some interaction with E, I had a chance to observe her interaction with others, female and male.
Females were upset when E entered the room, because all the male attention in the room went to her. Male attention went to E like iron filings to a magnet.
This was my first experience of someone so beautiful that she could literally stop the conversation in a room simply by entering it. I saw it happen many times.
One would think that being so beautiful might be a big plus in life, but at least in E’s life, the situation was much more ambiguous.
E was studying for an education certificate, and eventually she accomplished this feat, as well as an MA in English from the University of Washington. It appears, however, that she never had much of a career as a teacher. I had thought that her beauty would be a plus in a junior high school class, both for males and females. But it appears it was more of a distraction than a help.
Nor did E’s beauty bring her happiness in romance. Many of my friends made a play for her, but she stiff-armed all of them. Gradually, I came to the conclusion that something bad must have happened to her romantically, or even that she really didn’t like men.
Years later, a friend of mine from the West Coast reported that E had been a stewardess on one of the West Coast airlines on which he flew. In that role, she totally charmed the passengers on the plane, and had passenger cabin under complete control.
After college I moved to the Midwest for seminary and graduate school, and I gradually lost contact with my West Coast friends. But E remained in the back of my mind for several reasons.
You can’t study ethics, as I do, without encountering the question of the relationship between the good, the true, and the beautiful, and the relationship of all of these things (including beauty) to human fulfillment.
One can speak of the perfection of form, or the relationship of form to function, or the relationship of beauty to proper proportions, as architects are prone to do when discussing the “golden section.” One can also speak of how earthly beauty points beyond itself to the beautiful itself, or God. Or, one can be agnostic about all of the philosophical arguments about beauty, but still observe that whatever it is, it stimulates a lot of human activity, on the part of both females and males.
(The latest movie illustrating the phenomenon was The Devil Wears Prada, which tells the story of a young female college graduate (played by Ann Hathaway) who makes the transition between being a cute coed to a strikingly beautiful woman, thanks to the impact of the New York fashion industry on her young life–but not without some threats to her integrity as a person.)
I still think a lot about these matters, but in the meantime I’ve come to a conclusion: it is not a good thing in life to be given too much beauty (or wealth, or power, or any of the other good things of life).
Beauty is a great good, and a cause of great delight in God’s creation, but most people do not have the wisdom to relate to it properly, either in themselves or in others. Rather, in the spirit of Proverbs 30:1, it would be best to be given some, but not too much, of ANY of these good things, beauty included.
Whatever the complications of E’s life and relationships, they are past now, and she is in the presence of the One who heals all hurts and repairs all damaged relationships. RIP, E.
