KATIE POLSKI | CONTRIBUTOR In C.S. Lewis’ fantasy novel, The Great Divorce, there is a scene where people in hell are offered a bus ride to the mountains, which are symbolic of heaven. The passengers on the bus are all ghost-like figures while their family and friends near the mountains are solid beings, beautiful and non-transparent. One of the ghostly ladies on the bus, dressed very nicely, feels inferior because she is transparent and not as solidly beautiful as the others: “How can I go out like this among a lot of people with real solid bodies? It’s far worse than going out with nothing on would have been on earth. Have everyone staring through me.” [1] The spirit-narrator looks at the woman with bewilderment as she has just been given the chance to leave hell, and he says to her, “Friend, could you, only for a moment, fix your mind on something not yourself?” But she could not. Overcome with the way others might see her, the woman chooses eternity in hell rather than feel less beautiful than the other bodies in her midst. Vanity: A False Identity Vanity is often defined as someone who has an excessive love of themself—an over-the-top, prideful attitude that thinks, “I am the fairest.” Vanity is certainly not less than this. There are many who live in self-admiration of the way they look or in excessive pride over their gifts and talents. The vain person sees no need to give thanks to God when a compliment is received because they believe they are the sole reason for their success; they love themselves more than they do anyone or anything else, let alone the God who created them. But there is another aspect to vanity that is equally harmful, and that is seen through Lewis’ fantastical illustration. Sometimes, vanity surfaces from deep insecurities over one’s appearance. While seemingly contradictory, a person who is consistently ashamed of their appearance or often worried about how they look in comparison to others is also expressing vanity. Many women struggle with this in one form or another. Whether we walk around gloating in our beauty, or deliberately drive the bus back to hell to avoid company that causes us to feel outwardly inferior, it is all vanity, and connected to a blurred vision of our true identity as a believer in Jesus...