Renee Zellweger, Orual, and Me

Renee Zellweger’s face was all over the internet this week. She had plastic surgery that took away her signature chubby cheeks and ruddy complexion. She is still attractive. The only problem is that she no longer looks like the actress who charmed us in Jerry Maguire and Bridget Jone’s Diary. She is too perfect. We liked the old-version of Rene, flaws and all.

I remember having a similar reaction when Jennifer Grey had a nose job following her roles in Ferris Bueller and Dirty Dancing. Her new nose was lovely – but she no longer looked like the same woman. I would stare at her photo and think, “Really!? Wow. What a difference a nose can make!” It was almost like the original Jennifer had disappeared, replaced by this new version without her distinctive personality.

As much as I am shocked at the tendency of the rich and famous to erase their flaws, I admit I have a few that I would not mind erasing as well. For many years, I battled with being much too thin. I wasn’t the good kind of skinny, but the kind that made clothes drape awkwardly on me, the kind that meant I also was flat chested with knobby knees.

If I was rich, would I have fixed that flaw? Perhaps. My angst about my own personal appearance was all consuming in my early teens. I hated the way I looked and was certain that everybody else focused on my flaws as well. Now, as I approach the end of my 40's, I’m in a constant battle with graying hair. Thank goodness for Clairol.

All of us, and perhaps women in particular, are plagued by self-awareness, self-doubt, even self-hatred. We get consumed by the one thing that is wrong with our physical appearance, whether it is the belly that refuses to get flat or the ears that stick out at an odd angle. We worry that this is what is holding us back – as if this one feature could prevent relationships from developing or block our prospects of fame and fortune.

It is all too easy to hate how we look.

It is even easier to equate who we are, our identity, with our physical appearance. Is there more to us than meets the eye?

In C.S. Lewis’s gorgeous (and lesser-known) novel, Till We Have Faces, a princess named Orual is consumed by her own ugliness. She realizes from a young age that her sister is the good looking one. She is the smart one, but she is also hideous.

When she is young, her father taunts her and holds her face to a mirror – “Who would want this?” he mocks. And, she agrees. Orual eventually goes to great lengths to hide her face, eventually wearing a veil to block others from seeing what she really looks like.

But, Lewis suggests this need for transformation goes much further.

What Orual discovers in the novel, after a great deal of soul searching, is that surface ugliness is the least of her problems. As she fixates on the need to transform the physical, she neglects to realize that her soul is in need of a greater makeover.

Yes, she needs transformation, but the knife must go deeper. Orual is jealous and manipulative. She ruins those she loves in order to get her own way. She is ugly, indeed, but not just in the way she thought.

At the conclusion of Lewis’s novel, Orual is an old woman. On judgement day, she stands, naked, before the gods, and they reveal not just her ugly face, but the depravity of her soul.

Surely, this is as bad as it gets. To be revealed, warts and blemishes for all to see. But, in revealing herself and finally owning who she is – completely – a miraculous thing happens. Orual is made whole again. And, she discovers (much to her shock) that her vulnerability before the gods has left her beautiful, inside and out.

Transformation, Lewis suggests, is not purely physical. It cannot stay at the surface. As Orual learns, identity goes far deeper than our outward appearance.

So, we can change our nose. We can add size to our breasts. Yet even these changes will not ultimately satisfy our longings for perfection. We live with a residual dissatisfaction that goes much deeper. Our fixation on the physical, hints at our spiritual hunger. Perhaps we struggle to adjust and improve what lies on the surface because we fear going deeper.

When we know God and allow ourselves to be exposed, unveiled, naked, before Him, only then will we be truly transformed. From glory to glory, He's changing us indeed - not merely erasing our physical flaws, but digging deep, perfecting our true identity to reflect His image.

"And we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." 2 Corinthians 3:18