Judging by the cover...

These are a few thoughts that have been floating around in my head lately, and I thought they would make an appropriate Valentine's Day post...

You can tell what I've been studying lately...

Do you ever pause and ponder just how connected appearance is to essence?  We often hear, "Don't judge a book by it's cover" and it's often good advice.  Old, ugly, beaten up covers can conceal wonderful stories that have stood the test of time.  On the other hand, if you ever get distracted and  accidentally stumble into the romance section of your local bookstore, any covers that might assault your eyeballs before you can flee will leave you with little doubt as to what is contained in the books. 

Of course, this isn't exactly what was meant by that proverb.  The real warning is not for books but for people, as God warned Samuel: "The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

Still, we constantly judge people on their appearance, and I'm not certain that's totally wrong.  It's not totally right either, but that's an argument for a different day. 

I was listening to a song the other day which describes the magical meeting between a boy and girl: the enchantment, the infatuation, the hopes, the fears.  I'm not sure how common such magical meetings are among the general populace.  (I can recall no such meetings in my own experience, but I am hardly considered normal.)  As I continued to ponder, though, a thought struck me.  In the realm of romance this magical moment might not be a part of my experience, but in the realm of friendship it might be.  You meet someone new and there is just something about  them that attracts you almost immediately.  If they are the proper gender, there may be some romantic attraction, but there doesn't have to be.  There's just something about them - their face, their smile, their voice, the few words they speak, something - and you think, "We could be friends.  They're my type of person." Perhaps, in the words of Anne of Green Gables, they are a "kindred spirit."  And often that initial instinct is correct. 

This ties in to something else I've been pondering for a while: the idea of "type."  It's an assumption that I've run across a number of times: the idea that a man will always tend to be attracted to the same (physical) type of woman and a woman will tend to be attracted to the same type of man.  I'm not sure how well this claim is substantiated, but it seemed fairly reasonable in my experience.  If I had ever been asked what my "type" was, though I would have shrugged and said that I didn't think I had one.  That is, until recently, when, for some unknown reason, I began to think back over all the guys in whom I had had more than a passing interest or (for the sake of having a larger sample) who had been good friends.  Two distinct types emerged.  Not everyone fit, but most did.  Interestingly enough, guys in "group one" shared many of the same physical AND nonphysical traits, as did the guys in "group two."  Now, this is entirely unscientific and the "groups" are grouped very loosely (i.e. roughly the same color of eyes and hair.)  Still, in my two groups, physical appearance and personality seemed to have some connection.   It was enough to make me wonder (bringing us back to the original topic of the post), "How much connection is their between the material and non-material?  How much does our body influence our personality, and how much of our personality is portrayed by our body?"

For a further example, I had an argument with a friend a while back about which of us is more defined by our hair.  I'm not sure who won in the end, but I think I can say with certainty that  if both of us were forced to shave our heads, we would both feel rather unlike ourselves for a while.  For my part, I feel rather like I'm known by my hair.  There aren't that many red-heads around.  At my high school reunion someone commented that I was easy to recognize - the hair was unforgettable.  In college there were roughly 4 girls in my major.  Two of us had red hair.  I was often called by her name by people who failed to look past hair color.  The point?  My hair appears to be an important part of the way people see me and as such can't be entirely separated from my personality.  Of course, cause and effect can be hard to determine: do I act like a red-head because that's what I am, or because that's a mold I've been forced into by society - that sort of thing. 

While I don't want to make any broad generalizations, I think I would tend to argue that the physical and spiritual are irrevocably joined in us humans (in opposition to Gnosticism) and because of that, sometimes physical appearance does reveal personality. 

Of course, wolves can still wear sheep's clothing and battered covers can still conceal beautiful stories. 

What do you think?