(Continued from here.)
I thought of this strange moment a week later when I got in the elevator and was joined by one of my downstairs neighbors, a handsome man with a really ugly bulldog. The man, who could be a GQ model, is quite a contrast to his dog, who slobbers and drools through a grimace that only another bulldog could love. But I'm sure one does, because the dog seems very happy and obedient, little stump of a tail wagging frantically as she sits at her master's feet and lets everyone on the elevator pet her as they try to think of something complimentary to say. "My, she's gotten big!" The man used to live with a woman who also looked like a model, and whenever they got on the elevator I marveled at how two such esthetically matched people could have found each other. But then the tall blonde lady disappeared, and suddenly I began to see the man in the elevator with a short, round, smiling curly-haired woman who looked merely human. Shortly thereafter came a really cute baby, and the ugly dog.
Whenever the man and dog get on the elevator, I'm reminded of God's cleverness at creating so many different kinds of beauty. How amazing to share a world with life that looks like this or this or this, let alone this. It's proof that God is everywhere, as asymmetrical and quirky as God's own creatures. And sometimes this imperfect God even forgets where God is, and reminds us at the most inappropriate time and place, in the guise of a talking elevator panel, that we really need to take a vacation.
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