'Well, are you a tool?'
It was my default question when a student ran up to me saying, 'Sir, he called me a...' You get the idea.
I got called lots of things when I was younger and I learned how to shrug it off.
'I'm not a tool.'
Set apart
'The Bible says you're fearfully and wonderfully made' I told two of my students recently when they were each confiding in me about how they didn't feel pretty enough. 'You're so wrong!' I said. 'No, each aspect of your appearance—the things you like and those you don't—has been selected by God.'
'People want to laser and modify, but it's impossible to improve on God's perfect design.'
'What's more, the nose you don't like, it sets you apart! I bet it's your father's favourite thing about your face! One day you'll meet someone who loves your nose! Your nose is what makes you, you!'
It's so easy to tell other people that. I read the Bible every day. I don't even have to make a point of it anymore. Scrolling through Facebook and Instagram and glancing at the New York Times just doesn't cut it in terms of affirming my identity. 'No, I need a little bit of substance now,' I think to myself.
Living in Spain is wonderful, but boy when I get home I can't wait to tuck into a Thai green curry with a stack of steamed vegetables. Oh, coconut milk, Kafir lime leaves... You just can't find this stuff so easily in Europe.
It's the same with your identity. You can't find it on social media or in the media. You have to get into scripture to read about what God says you are, but even then it's one thing to get God's perspective on humanity. It is quite another to absorb and to reflect what he says about you.
All of a sudden I found myself preaching to myself, evoking something deep down. It's what I needed to hear in Paris only days earlier—when on every street somebody seemed to look right at me and turn and whisper or laugh. I found myself becoming slowly frustrated, affected and puzzled about how I somehow fit into this niche where it was socially acceptable to laugh right at a person.
'Am I a tool?'
'But why are they staring?'
Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you know the exhaustion, the irritation, the inconvenience of walking through a doorway in an art gallery and seeing a high school kid stop in his tracks, make big eyes and turn around and run away smiling to himself like the cat who swallowed the mouse? To know that he's running to grab his friends to share with them his find? To retreat back through the doorway and give that artwork one more look-over, just so as not to give that kid the satisfaction? Do you know what that's like?
All of us have that thing. It might be right there, out in the open or it might be hidden under a sock, or baggy jeans.
I read an article last year about how it is a human reflex to gawk at what's different, to notice, but that the rude person is the one who looks twice. Well, according to the article, there are a lot of rude people in the world.
'But you see, it's a perspective change,' I said to the girls. 'On every street there might be someone who looks at you twice and laughs, but there are 50 others who don't even notice you're there and probably a few who like your shoes, or your shirt—maybe even the thing you're sensitive about.'
As you really are: perfect
It's so much easier to hone in on the hater—the voice of the one. What we have to do is focus instead on the lovers and those who see us the way we really are: perfect.
We can't turn every corner looking for the person who has looked at you twice, because we all have a pretty incredible ability to find that person. No, we have to turn off this mechanism and work out our sensitivity.
I heard someone say recently that a person's attractiveness isn't in their classical looks, their dead-straight teeth or their upturned little nose, but in their ability to rock what they have. In other words, if you have a big nose, get it pierced. If you're thinning on top, shave your head and get your scalp out. If you wear glasses, get some nice frames and own it.
'Are you a tool?'
'Well stop letting them determine what and who you are!'
David Luschwitz is a writer and teacher living in Spain. He is currently working on his second book titled, 'What's My Name?' which deals with many of the issues raised in this article.
To read more of David's writing and to hear his story head to www.davidluschwitz.com
To follow David's ministry, Like David Luschwitz Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/davidluschwitzblog
David's previous articles can be found at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/david-luschwitz.html