Pride and Portraits

  I read once that if you start to get big-headed about yourself, get a child to draw a picture of you. Last week, my three-year-old brother saw me sitting on the coach and said, "Hey, I'm gonna draw you." And he did. In the midst of his scribbling he pointed out my hair, a blanket and a coffee mug. Since there was no resemblance between me and the picture, I was flattered that he wanted to draw me.

  Today I asked a few of my brothers to draw me and see what they came up with. Again my three-year-old brother showed his artistic skill is not fully developed. The other two, however, have slightly greater artistic ability. I could at least recognize some of my features. In addition to a wildly disproportionate body, my brothers gave me my short cropped hair and what they said were batman shirts. I also had innumerate spindly fingers splayed out like fans at the end of stubby arms.

  My experiment did end up working. I was not super flattered by the pictures my brothers drew of me, but that was because they were ridiculous caricatures. It was also a reminder that I am not my looks, nor is anybody else. No picture fully reflects the soul of an individual. We come to love people because of who we know they are apart from their looks.

  So  I cannot take much pride in those portraits, but I should not take pride in pictures of myself in the first place. Because I am not any caricatures of my body, I am the soul that lives in it.