HUMAN SILLY PUTTY

Someone recently told me about a story they read.  A woman decided to take a picture of herself every day for 4 years.  She took the picture at the same time of day, in the same light, in the same place for 4 years.  The result was a pictorial of the passage of time.  How even though we think we are relatively the same day to day, our looks change over the course of time.  There were some small changes in 4 years.  What a great experiment!  What would happen if she continued that through the course of her life?  If all those pictures were put together and flipped through like an animation deck of cards, we could see the cellular changes.  We would see the minute deteriorations, the reconstruction of our faces over time.  Isn't it funny what we say sometimes; "Look at him!  He is losing that baby face and looking more like a toddler."  "She is changing into that teenage face and leaving behind her little girl looks.  Growing up!"  "Have you seen Deb lately?  She is looking old."  "I haven't seen him in years.  When did he get so heavy?"  "You know this funeral home does a great job of making people look good.  Didn't Henry look like himself laying there?" A couple I knew from my childhood saw me recently after having not seen me for 28 years.  I asked them if they knew who I was.  They said I looked familiar.  They studied me.  They mused over it with each other.  I gave them hints; grew up in your town, went to school with so-and-so, and finally who my parents were.  Their response, "You are little Lynn!  I can see it now!"   I laughed out loud at still being seen and referred to as "little Lynn" - as a notation of being the youngest of my sisters not necessarily due to my size or stature.  I love to look at the anniversary postings in the local newspaper.  Especially the ones that print a wedding picture and a current picture side by side.  Sometimes it is a 30, 40, 50 or even 65th wedding anniversary.  I try to see if I can see their initial features somewhere still in their faces.  I think God is amazing.  He created living, breathing works of art - the human race.  Not stagnant paintings that never change, never morph into something different, stay one dimensional always.  God created us as a form of silly putty art - sculpted by a DNA, our environment, our choices, gravity and ultimately our proximity to death.  I am so glad I am not a still life.