Sagging skin, sagging worth?

Stay young. Wrinkles are among the worst of evils. Sagging skin betrays sagging worth. Your beauty is what defines you. Protect it. Spend your resources to keep it hostage. Do everything but kill for it, all the while pretending it is not your god.
Stop.
Breathe.
Read:
"Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk." 
-George MacDonald

George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and minister born in the early 1800's. He wrote fantasy literature not for the child but for the child-like, whatever their age may be. Although C.S. Lewis had never met him and was only a child when MacDonald died, many years later he lovingly lauded MacDonald his "master" and didn't write a book without quoting him in some form or fashion. 
This week  I painted a small abstract acrylic work on panel and scrawled that favorite MacDonald quote across its face. It will quietly sit in our living room a few feet from the screaming television that preaches quite a different message. 

May MacDonald also become our master. May his thoughts on age become our thoughts on age. Our bodies are dying from the moment of birth. Youth is not our right. It is ours for a few years and then it disappears into the better thing. Age. May we stop clinging to this life and begin to ripen in hope for the next, eternal one.