Vanity

I have a small drawer of bow ties. It turns out that I trip over these little strips of cloth.

1. The apple in the garden.

I went to the website of a very good bow tie vendor: beautiesltd.com. I looked at what they had. And one of their new bow ties was, to me, breathtakingly beautiful. It was a striking green with a paisley pattern in it. The website said it would go well with a camel jacket.

Bulls-eye. I often wear a camel jacket.

Two other ties also made me covet. They were striped. In some corner of my mind, I thought: What if I get interviewed for television? Stripes are good on television.

But when I was about to buy the ties, I hesitated. That happened two or three times in a row. So I decided to decide about the buying the ties in the morning.

In the morning, I still hesitated. Good bow ties are not cheap. And I didn’t need more of them.

2. Personal history comes to mind.

Still, I was about to place the order, and a memory popped into my mind. It was from when I was seven. Mom had started a small savings-account for each of us children, my brothers and me. Then, in a store, we saw a toy: it was a plastic cap with a whirligig on top. It had a string attached. You pulled the string, and the whirligig spun and lifted off of your head and flew up in the air. It was called a Beanie Cap, after the headgear worn by Beanie, a character in the much-beloved cartoon-show Beanie and Cecil.

My brother Erik and I wanted one. We told Mom that we wanted to take money from the bank to buy the toy.

Mom was vexed. She had started the bank accounts to teach us to be frugal. But we were spending the money on what was to her a dumb toy. But she had told us that the money was ours, so, pissed, she took us to the bank to withdraw the money for the dumb toy. A bank manager admonished Erik and me. He told us, "Money is for saving, not spending." Erik and I did not listen to him.

The toys were ours. But not for long. Erik and I spun our whirligigs, and the wind carried them up on the roof of our house. We pleaded with Mom to ask Dad to go on the roof to get them. She refused.

3. I buy the bow tie.

That story is what I remembered after I had entered my credit-card information and was about to place the order for the bow ties. But I placed the order anyway.

4. A lesson is learned.

I’ve thought about why I made such an unnecessary purchase that I knew better than to make. At first, I thought that the problem was that I’m a spendthrift: buying unneeded furnishings instead of saving for a needful day. That’s certainly correct.

But the tie-purchase came from a mixture of shortcomings. Yes, I spent money that I shouldn’t have. But the ties also represent vanity.

I like wearing bow ties. I like the compliments I get about them. I study myself in the mirror after I put on a bow tie. Vanity.

My vanity reveals itself other ways. I’m happy that, as I exercise and control my diet, my abdomen is growing tauter. I check out my shrinking belly in a mirror at the health club. I look at myself, shirtless, at home.

The problem is that when I yield to vanity, vanity crowds out what matters: personal relationships, work, God.

5. Looking at cures.

So I’m trying to correct this character defect. I’m trying to slough off care about how I look, or to bring it to an tolerable level. That means fewer trips to the mirror. And I’d rather have people think that my shirt doesn’t match my jacket, rather than give in to the self-regard that obsesses about the impression that my clothes make. I need to walk away from vanity. Maybe I need to run away from it.
I wonder if the cure will make me have to give up those things that feed my vanity, like swimming and wearing bow ties. I haven’t decided to do that, but the cure would be worth the cost. Maybe I should.

6. Summing up.

It would have been better for me not to have succumbed to being a spendthrift and being a peacock by buying those bow ties. But I am slightly compensated because that purchase exposed a blotch on my character.

7. Scripture knocks.

After I wrote this piece this morning, I read some scripture while waiting for the Easter service to start. I read 2 Kings 20. That chapter is about Hezekiah, king of Judah. He was much loved by God. In fact, when he was on his death-bed, he prayed to God, and God granted him fifteen more years of life. He stands out among other Kings of Israel and Judah, most of whom were rotters.

Ambassadors from Babylon came to Hezekiah with gifts. He showed them his gold, and his silver, and all of his treasures. Vanity.

Because of this, the Prophet Isaiah, with a message from God, told Hezekiah that Babylon would loot his treasures, and that his sons would be eunuchs in Babylon.

Lest anyone take vanity lightly.