Appearance and Reality – Sunday, September 14, 1980
One of the themes running through Shakespeare’s work is the conflict of appearance and reality. He was the first to tell us that “All that glitters is not gold,”1 and he also reminded us that “Every cloud engenders not a storm.”2 In trying to tell us that things are not always as they seem, the bard said, “Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.”3
It is sometimes good for us to reflect on the themes of great literature because their truth isn’t always limited to a certain time or people. And we, much more than the people of Shakespeare’s day, are living in a world of false images where reality is hard to sort out from appearance. It’s a world where a political candidate’s hairstyle may prove more important to his campaign than his stand on the issues. It is a world where we know each other so superficially that for some our best friends are those flickers of a color on a television set. It is a world where our dream homes are the slim facades of a Hollywood movie set. A world where we put on fronts because we are uncertain people will like us without our veneer.
The great danger in all this is that we may become so confused between appearance and reality that we put our faith and time in the temporary, rather than the eternal, spending a lifetime chasing cotton candy realities. It is too easy to equate the importance of a person with his visibility, the meaning of a job with its notoriety. We may let those things which seem the most pressing pull us away from the things which are most important. We may begin to think that power is wealth and influence, rather than personal integrity.
It was Kipling who said, “Lo, all our pomp of yesterday, Is one with Ninevah and Tyre,”4 two cities which have utterly vanished from the map.
Appearance and reality—if only they would label themselves so we could clearly recognize them and act accordingly. But appearance has a way of seeming immediate, important, demanding. And reality dressed in simple clothes fades quietly into the background. We rarely have time to stop in our running and ask, “What really matters in the eternal scheme of things?”
Thus, there is the father who misses his child’s first piano recital, but not his business meeting. There is plenty of time for a mindless magazine, but not the scriptures. We learn to envy those who are served, and not those who do the serving.
But one day when our eyes are clear, appearance with all of its false gaiety and self-seeking will take a final curtain bow and reality will take its rightful place—center stage. Then we will know if we have put our faith and time in their proper place.
1 Shakespeare, William, The Merchant of Venice II. vii. 65, as quoted in Shakespeare’s Best, Memorable Words From the Great Poems and Plays, pg. 43.
2 Ibid. King Henry VI, Part 3 V III.13, pg. 43.
3 Ibid. King Richard II, I. iii. 236, pg. 42.
4 “Recessional” Carl Fischer Choral Music, New York
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September 14, 1908
Broadcast Number 2,665