Volume XIX, Issue VIf: IMAGO DEI, Lizzie Velásquez
IMAGO DEI, Lizzie Velásquez, Faith and Dignity
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Imagine logging onto social media and discovering that your picture was being used to scare young children. Not by cruel teenagers, mind you…by adults. That happened recently to Lizzie Velasquez. Velasquez was born with a rare genetic disorder that leaves her unable to gain weight. Now 30, she has never weighed more than 62 pounds. The disorder has left her with deformed facial and skull bones. In 2006, a cruel YouTube video dubbed her the “World’s Ugliest Woman.” In stead of crushing her spirit, Velasquez has used the bullying and mockery to become a champion for the disabled and for others on the receiving end of internet-enabled cruelty. After graduating from college, she has become an author, writing several books to bring hope to those who have been abused because of their looks or disabilities. Velasquez is not shy about what is behind her remarkable response to all of this adversity. Her Christian faith, she says, has been her “rock through everything, just having the time to be alone and pray and talk to God and know that He’s there for me.” Tragically, as our culture’s disregard for human dignity worsens, so has the ridicule and abuse. (read more)
Rediscovering Imago Dei
Ten years ago, my young assistant and I were engaged in a project painting a mural of children around the world in the New Heaven and the New Earth. We found pictures of children living in dire circumstances in war-torn lands and garbage dumps and we painted them as Princesses and Princes in God’s restored world as described in ISAIAH 60. We delighted in celebrating the fact that each one of us is made in the Divine Image.
Sadly, so much of our culture teaches a blatant disregard for those “not like us,” played out in role-playing sites like TicTok or in the assaulting of diners in cafes for simply being “the wrong color.” This is not the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King nor is it a mindset likely to create a safe society. Our national motto is E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one). Surely we can learn to value each member of our wild and dysfunctional human family – and in doing so we might just see a glimpse of the Divine!
Rediscovering Imago Dei
Ten years ago, my young assistant and I were engaged in a project painting a mural of children around the world in the New Heaven and the New Earth. We found pictures of children living in dire circumstances in war-torn lands and garbage dumps and we painted them as Princesses and Princes in God’s restored world as described in ISAIAH 60. We delighted in celebrating the fact that each one of us is made in the Divine Image.
Sadly, so much of our culture teaches a blatant disregard for those “not like us,” played out in role-playing sites like TicTok or in the assaulting of diners in cafes for simply being “the wrong color.” This is not the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King nor is it a mindset likely to create a safe society. Our national motto is E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one). Surely we can learn to value each member of our wild and dysfunctional human family – and in doing so we might just see a glimpse of the Divine!