Dorian Gray And Us
Sermon
Life Injections II
Further Connections Of Scripture To The Human Experience
... Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed ...
No matter how hard we try to hide our dark side, it can't be concealed!
One of the most celebrated stories of all time is Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray1. Dorian Gray is a very handsome and dashing young man who had a flair for mesmerizing everyone he met. His picture hung over the fireplace in his home. It reflected well his captivating charm. There was one problem, however. Dorian Gray was not a good man. He led a hedonistic life. He corrupted women. He betrayed his friends and he exhibited few, if any, principles. He was beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside.
The story revolved around his picture which slowly began to change. It slowly began to take on the ugliness inside him. At first he ignored it but later, as the portrait became more twisted, more sullen, and more repulsive, he tore it from the wall and hid it in the attic where it continued to mirror the decaying soul that lay beneath his physically attractive features. The story ends with his destroying the picture only to discover, to his horror, that its ugly and twisted image had been transferred to him.
I reference that Oscar Wilde classic today because I'd like to talk with you about our inability to hide what might be wrong inside us. I'd like to talk with you about the fact that the chickens do come home to roost, that whatever bad we might have inside us cannot truly or really be concealed. Just as Dorian Gray had a portrait which revealed his hidden self, so do we have indicators that just as effectively do much the same for us. We may think that our dark side is holed up neatly inside us, but more often than we'd like to think, it's not the case at all.
Several years ago, an interesting article by Lois Wyse2 appeared in Good Housekeeping magazine. It listed some bits of advice for young women considering marriage, some helpful guidelines for finding a good husband. She said there are six ways to learn everything you need to know about a man before you decide to marry him.
First: Watch him drive in heavy traffic. Second: Play tennis with him. Third: Listen as he talks to his mother when he doesn't know you're listening. Fourth: See how he treats those who serve him -- waiters, waitresses, service attendants, etc. Five: Notice how and for whom and for what he spends his money. Six: Look at his friends. Lois Wyse saw the six points as providing windows into a potential husband's heart, clues as to the possibility of a dark side not noticeable in the romantic exchanges that usually mark a courtship.
Dwight L. Moody once defined character as what a person is in the dark. When one looks from a distance, as Wyse suggests in her six points, one is really seeing a person behave in the dark. It's peering through the veil hiding a person's character.
Sometimes, darkness and distance isn't needed at all. Sometimes one's inner life sits out there for all to see. I know a teacher of little children who one day got an anonymous note from one of her fifth graders. She became very upset because the note read: "If you feel all right, will you please notify your face!"
There are many people, like that teacher, who do not realize how they telegraph their feelings, how they show their disgust, how they display their disinterest, or how they exhibit their meanness. They may believe that no one can see it, they may think that they're hiding it, but it's there on their faces for all to see.
Then you have the assorted illnesses and sickness and health problems that serve as revelations of an inner life that's not too nice, an inner life hidden from the public eye. The Bay of Naples is the habitat of a jellyfish called Medusa and a snail of the Nudibranch variety. When the snail is small, the jellyfish will swoop down and consume it only to have it lodge in the digestive tract, its shell keeping it from going any farther. Once there, the snail slowly begins to feed on the digestive tract and, if not expelled, it will eat the entire jellyfish.
Quite often the dark side within us acts like that snail. It eats away at our insides. The bitterness, the anger, the envy, the hate, the desire for vengeance, the hostility that we might be carefully hiding from public view slowly begin to take their toll on our health. They eventually air themselves out in the form of a disease, a sickness, or a problem with our health.
In a study at a medical school that extended over 25 years, 255 future physicians took a battery of psychological tests. Those who admitted to hostile feelings inside them, over the course of the 25 years, had a four times greater incidence of illness and six times the mortality. That's just one of countless other studies that provide some impressive statistics tying certain diseases to moral and emotional conflicts within a person's life.
When our dark side is submerged beneath our outer life, it often finds its way to the surface via a sickness or health problem or disease. And sometimes it finds its way to the surface via the behavior and health problems of the people around us and near us.
Dr. Ashley Montague, the noted anthropologist, once got up before an audience of physicians and nurses and asked a question. He asked: "How can you demonstrate a lack of love on an X-ray?" No one in the room knew the answer. Montague then explained that when children aren't loved they don't grow; the evidence for this is the denser lines that can be seen on an X-ray of their bones. They are indicators of periods of time when love was lacking and growth did not occur.
All too often, the sins of fathers or mothers or both, sins hidden from public view, make their way into the open through their children, not just in their bone structure but in their behavior as well. Many a child's negative behavior can be tied to the dark side of a parent.
I remember a judge in Philadelphia once commenting that in all his experiences of dealing with juvenile delinquents, kids in trouble with the law, never once did he see a father show any sign of affection for his child. These were fathers who were prominent people in the community. Many seemingly wonderful fathers have these children from hell. You have to wonder if there might have been incidence of neglect or physical or sexual abuse that made those children that way.
Be it the lack of affection, be it neglect, be it abuse, horrid products of a parent's dark side, they may seemingly be hidden from public view but they do show themselves in the bone structure, the behavior, and the overall physical and mental health of those whom they're near.
So our inner life, our dark side, is revealed in our dark and distant activities; it is revealed through our face, revealed through illness or disease, revealed through the health problems and difficulties of those close and near, and revealed as well in the performance of our duties.
Years ago, on a talk show, the Amazing Kreskin asked several top sports figures and police officers to stand eight feet from a hanging tire tube and throw a ball through it. Each of them did so repeatedly with no problem at all. Then he had them think of the most upsetting, distressing, and traumatic experience they had ever gone through. When each of them was set with a memory of that bad experience, he had them repeat the exercise. Whereas before they threw the ball through the tire tube with ease, now they missed the tire completely and one of them actually threw the ball over his head and behind him.
That Kreskin demonstration proved how much of an effect just the recollection of a bad experience can have on a simple task. Just think of how ongoing feelings of bitterness and hatred and envy and anger can affect our behavior. We're kidding ourselves if we think that the negative pieces of ourselves that we hide from others don't register an effect on our jobs, on our duties, or in the carrying out of our daily lives.
When you come right down to it, Jesus in our Gospel was right on target when he said: "Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed nor secret that will not be known!" In effect, our inner life, which we might be going to great pains to hide, never really does get hidden. The fate of Dorian Gray is our fate.
Our call today is to bare our souls, to confess our sins, to own up to the dark side within us. For only by doing so can we realize the grace of God's forgiveness and thus begin to live a life where we'll have nothing to hide, a life where our inner and outer selves are one. My friends, heed that call today and spare your health, your children, your spouse, and your work from the dark side within you.
____________
1. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (New York: Modern Library, 1985).
2. Described by James W. Moore, When You're a Christian, the Whole World Is From Missouri (Nashville: Dimensions for Living, 1997), p. 71.
No matter how hard we try to hide our dark side, it can't be concealed!
One of the most celebrated stories of all time is Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray1. Dorian Gray is a very handsome and dashing young man who had a flair for mesmerizing everyone he met. His picture hung over the fireplace in his home. It reflected well his captivating charm. There was one problem, however. Dorian Gray was not a good man. He led a hedonistic life. He corrupted women. He betrayed his friends and he exhibited few, if any, principles. He was beautiful on the outside but ugly on the inside.
The story revolved around his picture which slowly began to change. It slowly began to take on the ugliness inside him. At first he ignored it but later, as the portrait became more twisted, more sullen, and more repulsive, he tore it from the wall and hid it in the attic where it continued to mirror the decaying soul that lay beneath his physically attractive features. The story ends with his destroying the picture only to discover, to his horror, that its ugly and twisted image had been transferred to him.
I reference that Oscar Wilde classic today because I'd like to talk with you about our inability to hide what might be wrong inside us. I'd like to talk with you about the fact that the chickens do come home to roost, that whatever bad we might have inside us cannot truly or really be concealed. Just as Dorian Gray had a portrait which revealed his hidden self, so do we have indicators that just as effectively do much the same for us. We may think that our dark side is holed up neatly inside us, but more often than we'd like to think, it's not the case at all.
Several years ago, an interesting article by Lois Wyse2 appeared in Good Housekeeping magazine. It listed some bits of advice for young women considering marriage, some helpful guidelines for finding a good husband. She said there are six ways to learn everything you need to know about a man before you decide to marry him.
First: Watch him drive in heavy traffic. Second: Play tennis with him. Third: Listen as he talks to his mother when he doesn't know you're listening. Fourth: See how he treats those who serve him -- waiters, waitresses, service attendants, etc. Five: Notice how and for whom and for what he spends his money. Six: Look at his friends. Lois Wyse saw the six points as providing windows into a potential husband's heart, clues as to the possibility of a dark side not noticeable in the romantic exchanges that usually mark a courtship.
Dwight L. Moody once defined character as what a person is in the dark. When one looks from a distance, as Wyse suggests in her six points, one is really seeing a person behave in the dark. It's peering through the veil hiding a person's character.
Sometimes, darkness and distance isn't needed at all. Sometimes one's inner life sits out there for all to see. I know a teacher of little children who one day got an anonymous note from one of her fifth graders. She became very upset because the note read: "If you feel all right, will you please notify your face!"
There are many people, like that teacher, who do not realize how they telegraph their feelings, how they show their disgust, how they display their disinterest, or how they exhibit their meanness. They may believe that no one can see it, they may think that they're hiding it, but it's there on their faces for all to see.
Then you have the assorted illnesses and sickness and health problems that serve as revelations of an inner life that's not too nice, an inner life hidden from the public eye. The Bay of Naples is the habitat of a jellyfish called Medusa and a snail of the Nudibranch variety. When the snail is small, the jellyfish will swoop down and consume it only to have it lodge in the digestive tract, its shell keeping it from going any farther. Once there, the snail slowly begins to feed on the digestive tract and, if not expelled, it will eat the entire jellyfish.
Quite often the dark side within us acts like that snail. It eats away at our insides. The bitterness, the anger, the envy, the hate, the desire for vengeance, the hostility that we might be carefully hiding from public view slowly begin to take their toll on our health. They eventually air themselves out in the form of a disease, a sickness, or a problem with our health.
In a study at a medical school that extended over 25 years, 255 future physicians took a battery of psychological tests. Those who admitted to hostile feelings inside them, over the course of the 25 years, had a four times greater incidence of illness and six times the mortality. That's just one of countless other studies that provide some impressive statistics tying certain diseases to moral and emotional conflicts within a person's life.
When our dark side is submerged beneath our outer life, it often finds its way to the surface via a sickness or health problem or disease. And sometimes it finds its way to the surface via the behavior and health problems of the people around us and near us.
Dr. Ashley Montague, the noted anthropologist, once got up before an audience of physicians and nurses and asked a question. He asked: "How can you demonstrate a lack of love on an X-ray?" No one in the room knew the answer. Montague then explained that when children aren't loved they don't grow; the evidence for this is the denser lines that can be seen on an X-ray of their bones. They are indicators of periods of time when love was lacking and growth did not occur.
All too often, the sins of fathers or mothers or both, sins hidden from public view, make their way into the open through their children, not just in their bone structure but in their behavior as well. Many a child's negative behavior can be tied to the dark side of a parent.
I remember a judge in Philadelphia once commenting that in all his experiences of dealing with juvenile delinquents, kids in trouble with the law, never once did he see a father show any sign of affection for his child. These were fathers who were prominent people in the community. Many seemingly wonderful fathers have these children from hell. You have to wonder if there might have been incidence of neglect or physical or sexual abuse that made those children that way.
Be it the lack of affection, be it neglect, be it abuse, horrid products of a parent's dark side, they may seemingly be hidden from public view but they do show themselves in the bone structure, the behavior, and the overall physical and mental health of those whom they're near.
So our inner life, our dark side, is revealed in our dark and distant activities; it is revealed through our face, revealed through illness or disease, revealed through the health problems and difficulties of those close and near, and revealed as well in the performance of our duties.
Years ago, on a talk show, the Amazing Kreskin asked several top sports figures and police officers to stand eight feet from a hanging tire tube and throw a ball through it. Each of them did so repeatedly with no problem at all. Then he had them think of the most upsetting, distressing, and traumatic experience they had ever gone through. When each of them was set with a memory of that bad experience, he had them repeat the exercise. Whereas before they threw the ball through the tire tube with ease, now they missed the tire completely and one of them actually threw the ball over his head and behind him.
That Kreskin demonstration proved how much of an effect just the recollection of a bad experience can have on a simple task. Just think of how ongoing feelings of bitterness and hatred and envy and anger can affect our behavior. We're kidding ourselves if we think that the negative pieces of ourselves that we hide from others don't register an effect on our jobs, on our duties, or in the carrying out of our daily lives.
When you come right down to it, Jesus in our Gospel was right on target when he said: "Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed nor secret that will not be known!" In effect, our inner life, which we might be going to great pains to hide, never really does get hidden. The fate of Dorian Gray is our fate.
Our call today is to bare our souls, to confess our sins, to own up to the dark side within us. For only by doing so can we realize the grace of God's forgiveness and thus begin to live a life where we'll have nothing to hide, a life where our inner and outer selves are one. My friends, heed that call today and spare your health, your children, your spouse, and your work from the dark side within you.
____________
1. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (New York: Modern Library, 1985).
2. Described by James W. Moore, When You're a Christian, the Whole World Is From Missouri (Nashville: Dimensions for Living, 1997), p. 71.
