If you glance at the headshot photo which appears with this column, you may notice that I no longer look like Bob Milner.

I enjoyed my brief few months of looking like Bob Milner, but in reality this is Bob Milner’s look, not mine.

Which begs the question, what is my look?

The Bible teaches that we become what we behold. Therefore you could reasonably conclude that I have been looking at Amish men. Although I have recently been introducing myself as “Fred Yoder, humble Amish farmer,” it is only in jest because my mirror says I look that way.

Look closely, however, and you will see a pencil-thin mustache creeping like a hairy, undernourished caterpillar across my upper lip. Amish men wear beards but not mustaches. They shave their upper lips because they are pacifists and regard mustaches as military tradition.

The reason I sport a pencil-thin mustache is that last fall I underwent 33 sessions of radiation therapy on the right side of my face to kill a stubborn basal cell carcinoma. I lost the hair on my cheek and in my nose, and on the right side of my upper lip except for that oh-so-thin sliver of mustache. To match it I of course have to shave the top of the left side.

“Oh, I wish I had a pencil-thin mustache, the Boston Blackie kind,” I sang to son Seed one day, fishing that snatch of tune and lyric from some dusty corner of my brain.

“Is that a real song?” he asked skeptically.

I told him it was a song from the ’30s or ’40s, when actors like Errol Flynn, David Niven and Clark Gable sported them, but the internet corrected me: it is a 1978 Jimmy Buffett song recalling the styles and stars of that era.

At first I shaved off both sides of my mustache, but Honey, who for the past 30 years has been blessed to have much of her husband’s face hidden behind a full goatee, cried out, “Fred, your upper lip is huge!”

As for the beard, I just got lazy and quit trimming it. I realize it looks like I am chewing a mouthful of hay, but I’m hoping for some celebrity to popularize the same odd pairing of Vincent Price mustache and Devil Anse Hatfield whiskers so I will appear to be on the cutting edge of fashion.

The Bible’s injunction to look only upon good and right things reflects an understanding of human nature. If we like what we look upon, we may become that thing. This is called the Gorgon effect. In Greek mythology, the Gorgon monster Medusa was so evil to behold that men were turned to stone. In the movie “The Untouchables,” the character Elliot Ness lamented that he had to become as ruthless as the gangsters he pursued in order to destroy them.

Our family celebrates birthdays by getting together to eat, laugh and talk. Perhaps the most important ceremony is writing birthday cards in which we tell the celebrant that he or she is a good, wonderful, accomplished, needed and much-loved person.

This is affirmation. Affirmation is a counter to the self-doubts and bad influences which pull us in the other direction.

For years my wife has tried to drum into my head that she would rather have a card telling her how much I care for and need her than all the candy, gifts and flowers that I might think she wants.

At age 76 I am just as susceptible to being distracted by a shiny object as anyone else, and have a lifetime of stories to share with the grandsons which begin, “I know this is bad because I made that mistake myself.”

To sum up, any affirmations you may care to share about how handsome I look in my Amish beard and pencil-thin mustache would be greatly appreciated. The radiation doctor said the nose and facial hair would grow back, but I’m not counting on it, and may have to wear this look for the duration.