The Picture of Dorian Gray

Sin is a terrible thing. We become comfortable in it and it spreads.


There are people in my life who are very hard to like. I don't like the situations that bring them into my life, nor do I like their behavior within it. It is frustrating to watch people make one bad mistake after another, and it's even worse when they bring down a lot of good people with them.
Suffice it to say I often lack charity and mercy when confronted with these people. My only defense is that I do not know how to love them. This is a true situation where I wish I knew what Jesus would do.


I have finally given myself a firm talking to and then submitted it all to God. I went to confession and feel a good deal better. The challenge, of course, is to continue to submit to God and to be ever mindful of Him. I believe firmly that I will improve in this; I want Heaven too badly not to.
The funny thing is, I did not come to this end in a moment of prayer or while reading my Bible. No, I was looking at my acne in the bathroom mirror and I began to think of Dorian Gray, the man whose life was as horrible as he was beautiful, while all of his ghastly deeds showed themselves only on a portrait of him that hung in secret. "Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face," Wilde wrote. And when Dorian shows Basil his portrait he tells Basil, "It is the face of my soul."
As I thought about my outbreak I wondered - stress? cycle? weather? sin? Maybe or maybe not, but it got me to stop worrying about my face and start wondering about my soul.