麻豆约拍

From Nick Baines, the Bishop of Leeds:聽
I鈥檝e got two sons - both of them well grown up now (that鈥檚 what I tell them, anyway) - and they鈥檙e both seriously colour blind. It鈥檚 great to play snooker against them. The thing about colour blindness is that you can鈥檛 tell from looking at them that they鈥檝e no idea which is the red, the green or the brown. Well, I鈥檝e just learned that tomorrow is Face Equality Day. Now, my first response was boredom that every day seems to be 鈥榮omething day鈥�. But, because I didn鈥檛 understand the title, I looked it up.聽
And it鈥檚 all about people whose face doesn鈥檛 conform to so-called normal expectations of beauty or normality. Perhaps because of medical or accident reasons, they suffer unwelcome attention or unkind responses from people in public. I鈥檓 trying to get the words right here, because those people working for change in this area use the term 鈥榲isible difference鈥� to refer to this phenomenon. It鈥檚 a way of challenging the assumption that some people who look different are worth less. The evidence is that when you find your own face has changed, people treat you differently. Well, we all know how important our face is.聽
According to Shakespeare, 鈥淭here's no art to find the mind's construction in the face" - in other words, look past the appearance and you might detect the mind or soul of the person. I think he got this from his familiarity with the Bible which is full of stuff about faces. Try: Proverbs 27:19, 鈥淎s water reflects the face, so one鈥檚 life reflects the heart.鈥� But, it鈥檚 too easy to avoid the point here by saying simply that it鈥檚 what鈥檚 inside you that counts, not what you look like.聽
Well, most people who say that sort of thing are probably OK with their own appearance. Perhaps I should try putting myself inside the skin - or looking through the eyes - of someone who gets stared at or, worse, avoided. How we appear to other people does matter - especially in a culture which constantly bombards us with images of normal beauty. But, how other people look at those who are visibly different matters enormously. Let鈥檚 face it, we can light up someone else鈥檚 face by loving who they are and the uniqueness of how they look.