My Silhouette, My Legacy

My Silhouette, My Legacy

“Let your silhouette be your legacy.” That’s what the electronic sign advised. I spotted it on my way to a meeting, with no time to do more than guess at its likely connection to some high-end spa treatment. But even then, I was struck by the message’s utter incongruity.

• silhouette (noun): outline, contour, shape, form
• legacy (noun): inheritance, heritage, endowment, gift

In other words, let your outline be your inheritance. Your contour, your heritage. Your shape, your endowment. Your form, your gift. Let your external configuration be what you strive to bestow to others and be remembered by.

There’s another obvious incongruity: my legacy is bestowed when I’m dead. So I’m being asked to leave behind nothing but an empty form when I’m gone, in the hope that it will be said of me, “She had a great shape.”

Later I did some digging. The line from the sign is connected to a trademarked portfolio of “medical aesthetics” that claim to “reshape and tighten without surgery or downtime.” In other words, let my legacy be that I was “tight” and “reduced”!

I’m glad I saw the sign. It reminded me that the legacy I’m aiming for is not a legacy of form or outline. It’s an endowment of content. A heritage of meaning. An inheritance of love. Father, when I take leave of this imperfect and very temporary form, let me leave behind thousands of acts of kindness, countless whispered prayers, hours of listening, scores of words upon scores of pages that point to you and your infinite goodness. Let me leave with others the memory of being seen and heard, loved and cherished, in your name and by your grace. I beg of you, don’t let my silhouette be my legacy!

When he had left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is seen for who he is, and God seen for who he is in him. The moment God is seen in him, God’s glory will be on display. In glorifying him, he himself is glorified—glory all around!”

John 13:31-32, MSG