11/13/2011 - by Chuck Monan, Preaching Minister

A woman in Zurich once sent George Bernard Shaw a strange proposal:  “You have the greatest brain in the world, and I have the most beautiful body; so we ought to produce the most perfect child.”  Shaw demurred, asking, “What if the child inherits my body and your brains?”

There is that.

Larry David says, “Let me tell you something about good-looking people; we’re not well-liked.”  But there is reason to believe they are well-paid.  University of Texas economist Daniel Hamermish’s new book Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful reports, “Ugly people earn less than average-looking people, and average-looking people earn less than the beautiful.”  The author doesn’t analyze what makes people attractive, but studies show that most people generally agree on a 1-to-5 scale on who’s pretty or handsome.  Hamermish’s research indicates that the good-looking man or woman can expect to earn an average of $230,000 more in a lifetime than a person who is plain or homely.

The most noteworthy aspect of Hamermish’s book is its willingness to acknowledge what most know but are loathe to admit: physical beauty is a currency of its own.  A currency that usually leads to, well, more currency.  The other day Susan and I were watching an A&E Biography on actress Raquel Welch in which she railed against the movie roles      offered her and complained about a lack of respect for her acting abilities, blah blah blah.

She never seemed to fathom that she was incredibly fortunate to be stunningly beautiful, a singular stroke of good luck that has generated a fortune for her.  She hit the DNA lottery and it had nothing to do with her.  Absent such a break, she would be just another average, nondescript person eking out a living.

So what does all of this have to do with anything?  A few suggestions:

• If you are beautiful or handsome, be humble.  You likely had nothing to do with it.
• If you aren’t beautiful, so what?  All of us are basically stuck with what nature has given us.  Beauty of spirit and character are far more important (and lasting) than physical beauty, anyway.
• If you don’t have a face that could launch a thousand ships like Helen of Troy, perhaps you have something in common with Jesus.  The Bible says of him, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Isa. 53:2).