What the God

Written by Jesse Medina

I have a confession. It is not something I am particularly proud of, but it is true. Are you ready? Here it is:

I am scared that my kids (once I have them) will turn out to be ugly.

Being ugly can really screw a kid up. Even if they are smart, witty, and incredibly talented, ugliness can debilitate a kid like nothing else can. But a good-looking kid, on the other hand, seemingly has it all…whether they’ve got anything else going for them or not. That’s why a ditzy blonde with a pretty face and rockin’ body can become insanely rich and famous. Or why guys like us could start a site like this.

And the worst part is that we can’t really control our own ugliness. Our best hopes are exercise, makeup, and cosmetic surgery. But there are limits to each. Exercise only improves how we look below the neck and while that is better than nothing, having an ugly face isn’t desirable. Of course many women, along with Adam Lambert, turn to makeup to make their faces look better, but makeup has limits. Unfortunately, some women don’t know that and think that more makeup is automatically better – and cross the line back into ugliness. And then there is cosmetic surgery which is perhaps the most effective method for reversing ugliness, but not only does it require you to have a lot of money, there’s something wrong with not having wrinkles as an old person.

So most of us eventually just have to come to terms with a hard truth: we will always be ugly.

And then we come to a second conclusion: God is a big jerk for making us that way.

Why would he do that?

We’ve had our ugly scientists – they study ugly, not that they are ugly (except one who will remain nameless. I will give you his initials, though…AJ Teaters) – analyzing data and tracking trends to come up with possible reasons God would create ugly people:

1. He has a sick sense of humor.

The ugly scientists think this a viable option only because it seems God had a sick sense of humor in other places in the Bible. Like when Elisha sicked bears on some kids for calling him bald (II Kings 2:23-24) or when Samson used a donkey’s jawbone to Leonidas his way to killing a thousand men and then quipped about using an ass's jawbone to make asses out of them.

Sick…but hilarious. Maybe, they postulate, that’s how it is with ugliness. Sometimes God just needs a good laugh.

2. Without ugly, there is no beauty

This is the age-old “the shadow proves the sunshine” theory. In order for us to acknowledge something as being light, we must also be acquainted with darkness. So perhaps in order of us to know beauty, we must know ugly. In that sense, the ugly people of the world are doing humanity a favor by helping us to know beauty. After all, a world without beauty isn’t much of a world at all.

3. He didn’t

At first glance, this doesn’t even seem like a possibility. All some of us need to do is look in the mirror to know that God created ugly. But our scientists speculate that “ugly” is a social/human construction that God doesn’t acknowledge. It makes sense: many years ago those women who were considered beautiful we what we might call today “big-boned.” They had appetites and could swing an axe (I’m speculating on the axe part, but you get my point). These days, women aren’t considered beautiful unless they weigh under 110 lbs. have enormous breasts and, in many parts of the world, would be considered malnourished by the look of their physiques.

Beauty, it seems, is fickle. Not to mention fleeting. None of us, no matter how beautiful, look good for an extended period of time. We all get old and we all get wrinkles.

And that makes me wonder: what if what we look like doesn’t even matter? What if what matters is the kind of people we are? What if in the next life, it is those who were ugly in this life that are the ones who receive the highest honor and are perceived as the most beautiful? What if it is our scars, wrinkles, and deformities that are considered beautiful in the next life?

For many of us that sounds fantastic...whether we are beautiful right now or not.

So maybe we should live this life in light of that one and that includes how we look at ourselves, others, and even our kids.

Which theory do you think it is? Or do you think there is another reason why some are ugly?