April 22, 2004
Dear Concerned Citizen,

Cindy, the latest contestant on Fox’s The Swan (a bizarre concoction of Extreme Makeover, Starting Over, Are You Hot?, Queen for a Day, and The Miss American Pageant) is about to experience the "big reveal". She has spent three months undergoing an endobrow lift, mid-face lift, cheek fat removal, fat removal under eyes, lip augmentation, liposuction, chin refinement, fotofacial, laser hair removal, collagen, lasik surgery, breast augmentation, tummy tuck, liposuction on the inner thighs, a 1200 calories a day diet, and two hours a day in the gym.

Just in case it all gets too much for Cindy there is also weekly therapy and life-coaching.

Cindy is a 32 year old mother of two sons and the wife of a loving husband. Each day during her three month ordeal she would weep uncontrollably over her homesickness. Her boys would cry on the phone for her to come home.

But she would tell them she had to stay because “The Swan program will make me a better person. Mommy has to do this.”

Your heart goes out to Cindy. Fighting back tears, she tells how her classmates would call her "witch". She’s always hated her face and her body. Even now, to have sex with her husband, she turns the lights off and wears a t-shirt. “I am just so embarrassed. I feel so ugly.”

So Cindy’s confidence (vis-à-vis her body) has been overhauled by an eight-member team including two plastic surgeons, a fitness trainer, a dermatologist, a cosmetic dentist, and a life coach. Like Steve Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man before her, they have rebuilt her. They have made her better.

For the three months during her reconstruction all of the mirrors in her hotel room have been removed. She has not been allowed to see how she looks. This is to add suspense to the "big reveal" when she and 15 million viewers see the new and improved Cindy for the first time.

It is reminiscent of the greatest reveal of all time. Thirsty from a long hunt, and bored from avoiding the ugly people and horny nymphs, Narcissus too had never seen his image. Cursed by Nemesis to “love but not win over the creature who he loves,” Narcissus approaches a magical pond with still, silver water capable of a perfectly mirrored reflection. When he sees himself he falls deeply in love with his image. But as he reaches out to touch his beloved, he disturbs the water and his beloved is gone. His love can never be satisfied. He dies from the heartbreak of unrequited love.

Cindy has so much more in her life than Narcissus. She is deeply loved by her kids and her husband. And she deeply loves them. But unlike Narcissus, Cindy does not love herself. She stands Ovid’s myth on its head. She loves others but not herself. Maybe if she is beautiful like Narcissus she will love herself like he does.

Tragically, in current American culture, the image you project is often more important than the life you live or the love you share.

As the curtain parts, Cindy (like Narcissus before her) sees herself for the first time. Her appearance has dramatically changed. She breaks into tears and sobs, “I don’t recognize myself at all. I am beautiful!”

The other pretty people attending the "big reveal" break into applause. They weep with her and embrace her. Unlike the nymph Echo who withered away after Narcissus spurned her advances because she was plain, Cindy now is acceptable.

From all appearances, Cindy’s self-esteem has been saved by this extreme makeover.

From Roman myth to American television, the desire to project a perfect image persists. But unlike ancient times, we now possess the technology to dramatically change our physical appearance.

Other technological prowess extends beyond cosmetic surgery. It can effect more than just how we look. We are capable of creating elaborate and believable illusions of reality in many areas of our lives. These illusions seem to come to life. Not only can Cindy change from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan, she can also fill her days with amusements and occupations that are almost entirely human made.

Many believe we no longer live in a God-made reality. Modern simulations create the impression that we have transcended everyday life.

As Daniel Boorstin tells it in his book The Image;

We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the media….Demanding more than the world can give us, we require that something be fabricated to make up for the world’s deficiency. This is only one example of our demand for illusions.

In a wealthy and technologically advanced society such as ours we have plenty of spectacular illusions. Movies, computer games, modern amusement parks, the Internet, biotechnology, reality T.V., and nanotechnology all promise to turn each of us into a mixture of fantasy incarnate and commoditized product. We believe we no longer are bound by the limitations that once controlled human life.

There is much good that can come from man-made realities. As Boorstin sees it;

It is not created by demagogues or crooks, by conspiracy or evil purpose. The efficient mass production of pseudo-events in all kinds of packages, in black and white, in Technicolor, in words, and in a thousand other forms, is the work of the whole machinery of our society. It is the daily product of men of good will.

The danger is when we forget the source of these goods; namely the God who made the world and commanded us to be responsible for it. This moral foundation acts as a powerful corrective to human excesses.

The same is true on the emotional level. If our lives become just our own invention, if all we do is fill our lives with our own fabricated illusions or human-made realities, then the world we live in will be a mere contrivance of a greater reality; the world God made.

Humans instrumentalize. God creates.

A cautionary stance is best when considering human-made realities.

Again, Boorstin;

The American citizen thus lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than its original. We hardly dare face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories to the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves.

Cindy’s reconstructed beauty will one day fade. What can remain permanent in her life is the love she shares with her family if they remain devoted to each other.

It is the same love that Narcissus and Echo desperately desired but never found.

With stunning prescience, Sidney Lumet's searing satire of television and the contemporary moment chronicles media corruption and the way that the public buys into the myths the media creates. The moral and spiritual turpitude delivered by the debilitating forces of television are rendered in sharp relief against a backdrop of crumbling humanity in what is regarded as one of the great satires in Hollywood history

Howard Beale: You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion.

Diana: By tomorrow, he'll have a 50 share, maybe even a 60. Howard Beale is processed instant God, and right now, it looks like he may just go over bigger than Mary Tyler Moore.

Max: After living with you for the last six months, I'm turning into one of your scripts. Well, this is not a script, Diana. There's some real, actual life going on here.

Max: I'm the man that you presumably love. I'm a part of your life. I live here. I'm real. You can't switch to another station.

"We also invent imitation worlds because it gives us a sense of power to be able to re-create a "world" in our own image. And we do so, because these imitations act as "symbolic arenas" in which we can have experiences that are, otherwise, closed to us, allowing us to vicariously live other lives, see other histories, and explore alternative modes of existence. In effect, then, we create world replicas to transcend the limits imposed by life, to overcome the "tyranny of actuality," and achieve a kind of freedom afforded by the imagination."

"Unfortunately, the forms of freedom offered by these creations usually turn out to be illusions, not merely in the sense that they are based on fakery and special effects, but also in the sense that they offer us false or incomplete ideas about what is worth striving for in life. In effect, many offer substitute satisfactions that encourage us to ward off an awareness of the difficult truths of the self and society."

Letters To The Editor

Responses to: Big Bang or Big Bloom?

I believe (and this is a leap of faith, not science), that we will find that life is also commonplace throughout the universe. Emotionally, I cannot conceive of a deity that would create a universe as immense and wonderful as the one we are in, and only allow life to exist on one insignificant speck. Not that that really means anything. Reality is what it is, and my preferences won't change it. But like the kid said in "Angels in the Outfield", "It could happen." To my mind, religion should be about the relationship of man to man, and man to God. It shouldn't be about how the universe (or, as some have suggested, the multiverse) works. That is the job of science.    H. M.

Wiker responds: In regard to life being commonplace, actually as science progresses we find out that the conditions that allow for life within our universe are very, very rare, so that it is becoming evident that the chances of life, even simple life, elsewhere, are increasingly slimmer. Apparently, we are a quite significant speck. As for what religion should be about, since God is the Creator of the universe and human beings are a creature in it, theology cannot help but be about how the universe works.

Your article on the "Big Bloom" was magnificent. I am a Christian who loves the natural sciences, particularly physics. The article was a clear and concise summary of the beginning of all things and a wonderful reminder of the way modern science often points us to God if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. I could not help but think of the opening words of the Epistle to the Hebrews:

"Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful words." Hebrews 1: 1 - 3a NRSV.

Thanks for helpful, thoughtful and worship provoking article. Blessings.    Pastor D. L.

Wiker responds: As you point out, having ears to hear and eyes to see, is perhaps the most difficult part. When scientists presuppose that the universe has been randomly produced, it is difficult, even for the most obvious evidence to the contrary, to penetrate their minds. Yet, one hopes, if the barrage of evidence of the intelligent design of the universe keeps hitting them, these walls too shall come tumbling down.

Regarding the tendency of our universe to increase order over time, you wrote "our universe was “rigged” from the beginning by a very clever Master of physics, chemistry, and architecture".

This conclusion overlooks the fact that the tendency towards increased order is found throughout nature. From gases condensing to form stars, to mineral crystals growing in solution, to organic cells arranging themselves to form complex life forms, we see a tendency toward increased order through time.

The Universe from which all these things came is no different. It is not a dead, static structure such as the farmhouse in your illustration. It did not require an architect. Rather, the Universe is literally alive and organic in and of itself, the space between stars being filled with complex molecules which form the basis for RNA and DNA. Should we be surprised that an organic structure such as the Universe increases with complexity over time? On the contrary, we would expect a simple beginning, growing ever more complex as the structure grows.

And this is exactly what we observe.   R.

Wiker responds: On the contrary, as St. Thomas would say. You suggest that a designer is redundant because a tendency towards increased order is found throughout nature. That very tendency is something that we cannot take for granted, and in fact, depends on the very fine-tuning that scientists have been uncovering at a rapid rate. Further, it is also scientifically false to say that organic cells arrange themselves to form complex life forms. Gases and crystals do, but that of course depends both on fine tuning and their marvelous properties. Some protein structures do "fold" by themselves, but others require aid and direction from the cell. Above that level, and organization depends upon the complex, unified living cell itself. Finding nucleic acids floating about, either in space or as synthesized in the lab, is a far cry from actual DNA. Further, DNA itself is inert; it doesn't magically make a cell by itself, but requires all the intricacies of an actual living cell. What we would expect, therefore, is entropy, not ever more complex organization.

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Regarding J. H. Jr.'s letter: the last three states to disestablish their state churches were Maryland (1810, Episcopal), Connecticut (1818, Congregationalist), and Massachusetts (1833, Congregationalist). For Christ and his church.   Rev. R. H.

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