Thursday Thinking - Beauty

Earlier this week Calvin and I looked at one of those less-than-inspiring internet articles that showed thirty or forty movie stars then (in their prime) and now.  Some of those movie stars had made some big mistakes in trying to preserve their youthful appearance.  Their pictures made me think about getting older and accepting the challenges, responsibilities, and new roles before us - no matter what our age.

Yesterday I read an old e-mail from Ande.  She'd been in Europe on an art study tour and included a picture of one of the paintings she enjoyed seeing in London.  

She said, "This is called The Grotesque Old Woman by Quinten Massys. It satirizes women who idolize their youth. (As I studied the picture) my teacher, Brother Geddes, leaned in close, smiled his wrinkly-eye smile and said, 'You know, beauty isn’t a gift. It’s something you earn. Eventually you’ll lose your pretty, but if you earn it, you’ll exchange it for beauty.'"

Like most faults, vanity is much easier to see in others than in myself.  Long-live my double chin.

Not so long ago I wrote an e-mail to my sister Rachel.  We were bemoaning weight-gain, sagging . . . you know the things women bemoan.  I wrote that I had learned a couple of things:  

One, that I had noticed that a woman can carry extra pounds as long as she is happy and comfortable with who she is and doesn't tug at her clothes trying to hide a lump or roll or doesn't constantly talk about her weight.  

Two, that I had learned to look in the mirror less and never early in the morning, it's just too easy to pick yourself apart.  I would never think, let alone say, to someone else some of the things I've said to myself about how I looked.  I've been downright rude.  One day it was like I saw my body as a little girl on the playground that another little girl was making fun of.  It was so mean and rotten of the little girl.  I realized that pretty much that is what I'd done to myself.  I'd let one part of me beat up on the other part of me.  I realized that my body had done incredible things for my spirit through the years -- those ample legs had held me up and carried me from place to place and let me walk, run, and climb wherever I'd wanted to go in the world; those sturdy arms had allowed me to hold and carry a lot of people through the years; my generous stomach had grown babies; that padded rear-end had allowed me to sit comfortably through many programs, meals, graduations, church meetings, etc.; those thick fingers had written a lot of notes and letters, wiped away a lot of tears, tickled, patted, rubbed and consoled; and all of those organs pumping, flushing, and expanding that I couldn't even see moved in concert to let me do and feel and be.  Suddenly I felt very stupid that I had ever picked at anything on my body.  I was a miracle and that miracle was incredibly beautiful.  How dare I judge it so unmercifully and be so rude to it.

Now when I look in the mirror and want to start picking something apart, I remember the girls on the playground and remember that beautiful, created body that has given me so much opportunity and dare myself to pick at something so trivial as a double-chin or a scar or a fill-in-the-blank.

And that's what I've been thinking . . .