“Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”  The evil Queen in Snow White has a genie in the mirror who reassures her that she is the ‘fairest of them all,’ until he doesn’t.  When Snow White is revealed as fairer than the evil Queen, her murderous rage is loosed against Snow White.

Envy is one of the most dangerous vices.  It can kill, and not only in cartoon fairy tales.  Envy has dealt the deathblow to friendships and professional partnerships.  It has prompted efforts to destroy the reputations of others.  It often sits at the root of the most malign gossip.

Envy itself is born of self-fascination.  This, my friends, is a universal condition.  We are endlessly interested in ourselves.  Granted, we are fascinating.  But we are too small to deserve all the attention we bestow on ourselves.

The remedy for our self-fascination and the misery it brings (regardless of whether we think too much or too little of ourselves) is to think about ourselves less.

Worship stands between us and the magic mirror. 

The magic mirror facilitates our self-idolatry.  Worship of the God of all the universe turns our gaze to a much larger horizon.

When we give our attention to the fairest One of all, it has the effect of distracting us from ourselves and our selfish concerns.

The worship of God is not an act that satisfies God’s ego need for praise.  Rather, it lures us out of our self-fascination and enables us to see more clearly the world we inhabit and the people around us.  We can see people more nearly as they are, not just how they compare to us or what good or harm we can expect from them.

Here’s a twist: true worship can do more for our self-acceptance than the flattery of a magic mirror.  The God we worship invests us with a worth and dignity that our self-regard cannot match.  The fairest One of all looks at us and sees us as more than we are.  God sees us as the perfect reflection of Christ which we are destined to become.

Prayer:  Give me a truly magic mirror that lets me see through the glass to behold Your presence in the world and in my neighbor.  Amen.