Are You Special?

Being Nobody Special

“…while I am precious in the eyes of God, I am ‘nobody special’ and likely never will be.” Paula Houston

In Simplifying the Soul, Paula Houston recounts being invited to speak at a large conference of Catholics. She was terribly nervous and self-conscious, concerned about her appearance and how she would come across to her audience. On the way to her first presentation, she looked down and saw that her boot had split from sole to sole across the toe. She laughed, knowing it was a wake-up call to get her mind off herself and just be present to her audience. I have had similar experiences, and I’ll bet you have too.

We have been schooled on such notions as, ‘appearance is everything,’ and ‘dress for success,’ and ‘first impressions are lasting impressions.’ We are terribly self-conscious about how we look to the world. The fashion industry relies upon styles and colors changing seasonally to keep people shopping and feeling out of step if they’re not dressed accordingly. Women spend most of their discretionary funds on clothing, shoes and make-up to augment and altar their appearance so that they won’t look…well…how they really look.

No one likes to think that they are ordinary. We’d rather not blend in with the crowd. We choose to make a statement with our appearance that sets us apart, so that the people we meet will say complimentary things and want to be around us. We believe that nice clothes and perfectly coifed hair and great shoes say, ‘now, that’s somebody special.’ What happens on the surface is more important than what happens inside.

An enormous amount of energy and resources go into creating somebody special and every minute spent grooming and adorning ourselves moves us further away from what is real and authentic. If we spent half as much time getting to know ourselves at a deeper level, we’d be less self-conscious and insecure about our appearance. We would learn that there’s a lot of freedom in being ‘nobody special’. God loves you 'just the way you are, neighbor'.

In the spirit,
Jane