“I
can always tell the state of someone’s soul by examining
the medicine cabinet. And it’s always easy to take
a peek when I visit a house. A well-kept medicine cabinet
is a well-kept person—such a one can be trusted.”
“I
can always tell the state of someone’s soul by seeing
how well that person cares for the family pet. Ten minutes
a day is the absolute minimum that must be spent on grooming
the animal. If that is not done, there is something very
wrong with the person’s soul and that person is
not worthy of my trust.”
“Let
me look at a person’s desk or work space and I can
tell you whether that person is emotionally and mentally
healthy or not. The order in which that space is kept
is a clear indicator of that person’s mental health
and trustworthiness.”
Yes,
all those statements above are actual quotes. In each
case, they were given as an explanation of how they decided
whether to trust another person or not. Medicine cabinets,
pet care, work spaces—each an external sign that,
according to these people, were sure indicators of inward
health and wholeness and trustworthiness.
In
each case, the individual was looking for an external
indicator that would signal an internal state. Just about
everyone I know has these indicators, although not everyone
is bold enough to express them. People who reorganize
homes for a living are sure they can see into a person’s
heart by they state of order or disorder of their living
spaces. People who love gardening can state positively
that the state of one’s lawn or garden tells everything
that needs to be said about the inhabitants of a residence.
Fitness experts confidently assert that an unfit body
clearly means that the person living in that unfit body
has major character deficiencies. Fashion experts . .
. well, you get the idea here. People use their areas
of expertise as lenses to make decisions about the interior
lives of those they see.
Why
do we do this? Because we, unlike God who really can see
deeply into the heart, really do have to depend upon the
exterior for the majority of the decisions we make about
other people. But the pressure!!!! If you and I don’t:
clean out our medicine cabinets, keep well-groomed pets,
have pristine work spaces, perfectly ordered houses, fertile
and well-tended gardens, and superbly toned bodies then
we are judged as less than fit, healthy, etc.
Worse,
people who do manage to do all those things are judged
as worthy of being trusted. And the very opposite may
be true—for such people may have mastered the art
of looking perfect on the outside, but may have neglected
any real interior character formation. And character ultimately
trumps all these outward signs. In the end, it is all
about character, or soul health. The rest falls by the
wayside.
I
suggest to you that there is a far more reliable way to
discern a person’s true character than by relying
on some arbitrarily determined outward characteristic.
It is this: Does the person hold to a single standard
or a double standard? In other words, will that person
(or will you) really treat others in the way he or she
would like to be treated, or does the person (or you)
make all excuses for his or her own behavior and decisions
and permit no excuses for someone else’s behavior
and decisions? The answers here are a lot more reliable
in the long run than ones learned by snooping through
medicine cabinets and sniffing pets.
