Inner Beauty?

It could very well be that you are not beautiful.

In the time and place where I live, large eyes + high cheekbones + small nose + full lips = beauty. More or less. If you don't have this equation, it's possible that you are not beautiful. At least by the prevailing American definition.

Well, let's talk about your inner beauty. Eye roll. Some of you are thinking, Inner Beauty is what people gush about to make you feel better if you are not outwardly beautiful.

But what is inner beauty anyway? How is it defined? If a person is kind, loyal, funny, and trustworthy, does that make her beautiful? I don't think so. That makes her behavior beautiful. What if she's mean, bitter and unfaithful? That's ugly behavior, but it does not make her spirit -- her self -- ugly.

Bad behavior has no effect on your worth. A person has value because she or he is made in God's image. That's it. What you do matters, but behavior has no effect on the worth of your soul.

It's safe to say that anything created by God is beautiful. So welcome to the Beautiful People Club. Where high cheekbones are welcome and kindness is encouraged, but neither is a requirement for membership.

Mirrors

"I have five. Do I hear six hundred? Seven hundred dollars? Do I hear eight?"
The auctioneer asked for higher and higher bids, and my hopes of buying the mirrors slipped away.

At an art auction I had found a set of old mirrors. That's a photo of them. That's the shiny, reflective side you're looking at. Not too clear? That's what happens to mirrors that are 2,000 years old. They were fashioned in China and Korea, and some of them were made as early as 200 B.C. What did they look like when they were brand new? Even the shiniest metal gives a poor reflection compared to today's mirrors. 

My bathroom mirror gives a crystal-clear image, but it's reversed. If I touch my right ear, my reflection touches her left ear. The image is perfectly accurate but completely backward. When I look at my reflection through the lens of over forty years of cultural messages and propaganda, my thinking is often backward because I believe that parts of my body are ugly.

But our bodies are amazing. Especially in youth, they function beautifully. Blood is oxygenated and cleaned. Nerve cells send signals to the brain that are interpreted and acted upon at lightning speed. The brain stem tells my heart to beat so that my frontal cortex is free to think about theology or how to get out of cooking supper tonight.  But the culture says that this amazing body that runs and sings and eats is not good enough.

The culture is like a corroded, two thousand year old mirror. It shows you a distorted image. It's not the real you. An ancient mirror may go for over $1,000 at auction. But the real you is priceless.

Dad Bod

Have you heard about the Dad Bod? Apparently it's what women really want.

The Dad Bod is not chiseled. No six-pack abs or bulging biceps. It's the body of the man who can afford a mortgage. He's not so self-absorbed that he spends every moment at the gym. He's too busy caring for kids and cooking meals to pump iron. Or if he's single, he doesn't have all day to work out because he's busy helping underprivileged kids.

Women say they don't care if you put on some weight and lose some hair. But as Canadian singer Terri Clark sang in her 2004 song of the same title, "Girls Lie, Too." Lies like . . . it doesn't matter how big your paycheck is . . . we don't mind if you're not handsome . . . we don't care what you weigh or what you drive. Right. On our better days maybe.

On a deeper level that we don't talk about with anyone, a lot of us want more than a Dad Bod. We want the responsible husband, but we also want the bare-chested, chiseled man on the cover of the trashy novel. Why? Because the most handsome men get the most beautiful women. If my husband/boyfriend is not a 10, then I must not be either. And if I'm not beautiful, then I'm of no value.

But it's a lie. My value lies in being made by God in the image of God. I have value because Jesus didn't die for nobodies. If you're well-versed in Christian theology, you may think, "Oh, but I am a nobody. That's why it's so amazing that Jesus died for me." I beg to differ. What do you bring to the redemption equation? Nothing in your hand. But if you had no intrinsic value, Jesus would not have bothered to die for you. Who pays a ransom to get something back that has no value? The ransom was paid outside Jerusalem on a Friday. That's the body I need to focus on -- the one that hung on a cross. The dead and resurrected one -- the God Bod.

Breasts

In honor of breast cancer awareness month (which is October) and because I had a mammogram today, let's talk about boobs. That's a silly, disrespectful thing to call them, these amazing nourishment-producing parts of a woman's body. But, oh, how often breasts are treated with levity. Not that breasts must always be serious, but when talk arises of Hooters restaurant and wet t-shirt contests, many women -- be they large or small busted -- are uncomfortable.

Advertisers tell us that only large breasts are attractive to a man. It makes sense. Females who are not sexually mature have no breasts, and women who are sexually mature have breasts. So it follows that the bigger they are, the more mature and attractive the woman is to a sexually mature male who wishes to procreate. This, of course, is a lie, but it sells more push-up bras than the truth.

But what about Hooters and wet t-shirt contests? Don't they prove that men prefer big ones? No. If your breasts are large and you're wearing a tank top or wet t-shirt, then they're hard to miss. But get a man one-on-one and small breasts are just as arousing as large. Or so I'm told by friends who are male.

The media is also limited by obscenity laws. In most advertising, nipples and frontal nudity below the waist are verboten. So what choice do they have? Advertisers have a fraction of a second to get your attention, and bigger things catch the eye faster.

Ah, if only the media were like the mammogram machine. It's looking for small things, namely tumors, to identify a big thing, namely cancer. So look to the media for lies and to your mammogram machine for facts. It'll squeeze the truth right out of you.

God's help

I struggle with the magazine ads and Internet photos of "perfect" bodies. I tell myself to believe God's truth, not the culture's lies, about a woman's worth. I proclaim that we are made in God's image. But in my struggle, it never occurs to me to ask for God's help.

Do I think God is unconcerned when God's daughters (and sons) believe their worth is tied up in appearance? Is it possible that God cringes when commercials tell us we will not be beautiful until we buy their product? Well, if you overheard an adult tell a child, "You are worthless because your body doesn't measure up," would you be angry? Our anger is a reflection of God's anger. God cares about this. Ask for God's help.

So how should I pray?

God, help me stop comparing myself to other women. I don't know how to stop believing the lie that a beautiful woman must look like this or that. Show me how. Remind me not to click on the sites that extol or criticize a celebrity's body. Tell me if I'm demanding too much of myself when I think, "I must change my thinking on this NOW." I've been thoroughly brainwashed on this by our culture. It may take time to learn new thought habits. Help me to be patient with my brain.

How should YOU pray? I don't know because I don't know your struggle. Honesty is a good place to start. God's chosen people are called Israel. The name means "wrestles with God."  Wrestling with God is not always a bad thing. Better to wrestle with God than ignore God. We need God's help if we're going to wrestle with the culture. So climb into the ring, ask hard questions, and ask for healing and help.

There's the bell.

Fifty Shades

Is it okay to write about Fifty Shades of Grey if I haven't read the book or seen the movie? No, I don't think so. However, I have read a few blogs by people who have read/seen Fifty Shades. So I'm allowed to comment on the blogs.

It's interesting that the movie is condemned by both sides of the cultural divide. Since when do Left and Right agree? One feminist web site condemned the movie for promoting the use of force in sex. If both parties are fine with bondage/dominance/sadism/masochism as shown in Fifty Shades, that's okay, the writer said. But Anastasia, the female protagonist, does not give consent to everything done by Christian, the male lead. Lack of consent is the main problem.

What made me mad was the feminist's critique of some Christians' response. She accused Christians of focusing all their ire at the premarital sex and ignoring the consent issue. This is probably true of some Christians. We should condemn with equal vigor both the extramarital sex and the movie's approval of non consensual sexual activity. The thing is -- many Christians do give the two sins equal weight. Don't lump all Christians together in every accusation.

It also makes me mad when Christians lump all feminists together. Some of us feminists (yep, I include myself) are Christians and anti-sex-outside-of-marriage.

Here's my request for both sides: Please don't assume you know what all Christians think. Don't assume you know what all feminists think. Don't generalize. When you're painting your Fifty Shades of Grey, don't use too broad a brush.

Trapped

I am a woman. The culture tells me I must look my best. I must be pretty to attract a man. Some people in the Church say my highest calling is to be a wife and mother, so I must look nice to catch a man's eye. I must be tasty bait. Bait must be caught, trapped.

Others in the Church (or sometimes the very same people) say I must not attract too much male attention. They say, if a male desires me too much, it is my fault. If a male violates me to any degree, I'm to blame because I tempted him. I must not wear two-piece swim suits. I must not wear short skirts or any top that suggests I have breasts. 

"Do not wear anything that shows your figure at all," some women hear. "Don't even show your face because it could be a temptation. Come to think of it, a man could see you clad head-to-toe in a shapeless garment and still be tempted. So do not leave the house." Trapped.

I am a woman. I must attract men. I must repel men. I must live to meet the needs of men. I must do this out of obedience to God. That's what I hear.

I am a woman, and I am trapped. Please God, tell me you're not like those males. Tell me you are not male at all. Set me free.