Beauty Everywhere

A raging feminist has been lurking dormant in my system, it seems, and lately I find myself enraged at the objectification of women, lies we're told about our bodies, lessons we learn by osmosis-- how to talk about ourselves as never meeting the Photoshopped standard, too big here, not enough there, flaw after flaw after flaw, how to measure our self-worth, whose opinion matters. How dare they, I think. How dare I be judged and judge myself only on appearance?

Because of this, I have wrongly started to resist the word "beauty," hesitate to label a person as beautiful. The beauty of a human body is too closely aligned with sex appeal in our culture. I find myself thinking, "Wow, she is really beautiful," and then flinch - oh, no, am I a product of my culture? Have I fallen slave to the sex selling machine?

I want to be beautiful. Not just the inner beauty we all tout around, I also want to be beautiful outside; to leak joy and hope, yes, but also to view my physical being, not just my spirit, as a thing of beauty. Instead, I have been trained to analyze every perceived flaw in my figure. 

Beauty, we say, is in the eye of the beholder, but I don't think that's true.

When we look at the mountains, do we think, "Well, that range sure would be stunning if the trees were a little taller." When we look at a flower, do we think, "Oh, if only that marigold had a few more bunches of yellow, then it would be beautiful." When we are overwhelmed to the point of silence by a sunset over water, clouds pierced by rays of light reflected on waves, an array of color so bright we have to squint, our eyes tear up, can we think anything except awe, anything except, "Wow. Stunning. Amazing. Awesome. Gorgeous. Beautiful."

No. The thing itself is beautiful, whether we say so or not. Even the crumbling brown landscape underneath the frozen pack of snow finally exposed in the bright March light this eternal winter is beautiful, its grasses crisp, its dirt soaked, the buds on its branches so real, so good, so true. It is beautiful because it is. It is beautiful because it is real. It is good. It is true.

The philosophers of the ages hold up beauty as transcendental, equal to and paired with truth and goodness. Truth, Beauty, and Goodness are the defining characteristics of God in the church. Where one goes, the other two follow. Complete truth, beauty, and goodness is holiness; it is what Christians aspire to in order to achieve wholeness in Christ, who is the embodiment of these three characteristics. 

Beauty is fine in nature, it is fine in art, fine in landscape, fine in architecture, fine even in the perfection of math, in science, in physics, beauty as theory as measurement as precision as symmetry as color as prism as light. 

Why not the human body?

This, I asked myself today as I walked from my office back to my car, surrounded once more by college students, all in their late teens and early 20s, bodies embellished or hidden, tucked in skinny jeans, falling out of tank tops, topped with ball caps, pierced, tatted, booted, some bare, some smiling, some talking, some frowning, some laughing, and all I wanted to do was stop each one and say, "God, you're beautiful." All of you. Miraculous you. You are beautiful because you are. You are real. You are good. You are true. You are beautiful, God-breathed, unique.

There's a quote that is often mis-attributed to C.S. Lewis that says, "You don't have a soul. You have a body. You are a soul." I used to love this, loved it even after I knew that C.S. Lewis didn't say it, because it de-emphasized the part of my being that I have always been most critical of, scorned and embarrassed by. Good, see, I will shed this body and be an eternal soul, and that's all I need to worry about, my soul, its truth and goodness and beauty, not my body, withering and dull and flawed. 

But this is not true. We are souls. We are also bodies. We are also minds. We are also spirits. We are all of these things, so intricately woven together that we still cannot unravel them to find where soul ends and body begins, where mind stops and spirit starts. We are all of these things, mystery of creation and dust, mystery of growth and decay. We cannot deny that we are also bodies; we cannot rail against the structure that holds the rest of us together. To deny the body is to deny a part of our being, and now we are denying ourselves wholeness. Truth. Goodness. Beauty.

Can we begin to separate sex appeal from human beauty? Can we begin to celebrate the human body in its strength, its tone, its architecture, its flexibility, its aesthetic design, its full range of motion and its ability to heal? How drastically different would it be to think of ourselves this way, instead of comparing ourselves to the cover of a magazine, judging a woman who walks down the street, casting a downward glance to avoid the crazy thought that someone else is lovely? Can we begin to speak truth into ourselves, into our children, into our family members, into our friends, maybe even into strangers, "God, you're beautiful." Beautiful because you are. 

Beauty. It is not such a difficult word.

Confidence vs. Arrogance

Any time I write about self-image, weight lifting, exercising, our diets, publications, and anything at all happy, the following thoughts ricochet about in my brain after hitting "publish" on my blog:

• People are going to think I'm arrogant and self-centered with all this, "Look how joyful and healthy I am" stuff.
• Am I arrogant and self-centered?
• I better write a sarcastic and funny post about all of my faults and how much I suck.

So, immediately after I wrote about how good weight lifting was making me feel and the degree of self-confidence that gave me the power and strength to stretch into yoga poses I'd never been able to hold before, I wondered if what I said was arrogant.  Am I a braggart?

And then this verse came to mind, one of my favorite Bible verses,

"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).

There is a huge difference between arrogance and confidence, and an equally huge difference between humility and self-deprecation. 

While confidence and humility can walk hand-in-hand, joyfully celebrating the good work that you are while realizing you aren't perfect and that's okay, in fact that's just right because you are still in-progress, and this growing and refining and shaping is beauty and art and the stuff of life,

 

 

arrogance and self-deprecation propel away from each other.  Arrogance and self-deprecation propel you away from others.  Arrogance and self-deprecation speak opposite lies in the same direction: one says I'm so much better than you. The other says I'm so much worse than you. 

 

Confidence and humility tend to operate from a position of neutrality: I am someone who matters.  You are someone who matters.  I will treat you as if you matter.  You will treat me as if I matter.  Because we matter. 

 

Ironically, both arrogance and self-deprecation turn the spotlight on ourselves.  Look at me, I'm awesome, so much more awesome than you! or Look at me, I suck!

 

Confidence is knowing that you are a good work.  Arrogance is thinking you are the hottest piece of work to walk the planet and thus you need no more work at all.

 

People always say, "Ivan the Terrible. Oh, he's so terrible, oh, I'm so scared of Ivan, he's bad news." When in fact, the correct translation is, "Ivan the Awesome." - Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smythsonian

 

Humility is willing to wash the feet of a stranger.  Self-deprecation lies down on the floor and begs to be stepped on, and when you tell it no, you don't deserve to be stepped on, you're great!, it says, no, no, no, really, I am a doormat.  Step on me.  Self-deprecation downgrades its worth so that others will take pity and deliver praise for how awesome you really are.

 

Unlike arrogance and self-deprecation, confidence and humility don't carry around a yard stick to see how they measure up with others.

 

No more measuring.  Who are you?  Who were you created to be?  Are you walking in that direction?  Keep walking. 

 

Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, and don't think of yourself more lowly than you ought. 

 

Consider yourself and be confident.  Consider others and be humble.

Why Do We Need Men?

So there's news flitting about that women are increasingly the leading or sole breadwinners in the American family.  In most cases, this means more and more families are being raised by a single mom with an absent father, or the reason mom is the breadwinner is because dad can't find work. 

It isn't because a couple sat down together and reviewed their financial and family plan to assess what the best scenario might look like for their family.  That is what we did back in 2007; we looked at my job prospects and our growing family, our move to a new city, and we said, let's see if this can work.  It did, with bumps and bruises, just like every new adjustment.  We know other couples who have made similar decisions and have made it work, and made it work well.

That isn't what we're talking about here, though.  Not many are celebrating this shift as a strong, positive, changing tide in family dynamics.  Kathleen Parker in her Washington Post article "The new f-word: Father," Fox News anchors (all flabbergasted males), and the MSNBC "Morning Joe" edition (almost all successful females stumbling about for a good answer to the "why men?" question) all discuss this trend toward women as sole or primary breadwinner, and none of them think it's a good thing.
 

The study spawns one of the strangest questions I can think of to be taken seriously by the general public, "Why do we need men?"

If a woman can earn a degree, work hard, carry a child, mow the lawn, take out the trash, prepare meals, and change a diaper all on her own, why bother with a man, who simply complicates life with his dirty clothes, smells up the place with his burping and farting, and adds another person to worry over and provide for?  Obviously all men are good for is sperm.  After impregnation, we can take it from there.

Why do we need men?  Why are we asking this question?  Why do we need women, when we can grow babies in test-tubes?  The necessity of an entire gender of a species is obvious.  What we're really asking is, "Where are the good men?"
 

Good men, whether stay-at-home fathers or sole breadwinners, love and support their wives, whether they stay-at-home or go-to-work or some combination of those tasks.  Good men teach boys how to be men.  Good men show girls what a good man looks like.  A good man leads when a good woman doesn't know what to do or where to go; a good man communicates with his spouse when he doesn't know what to do or where to go.  Good men (and women) lift up when the other falls down. 

We need good men for the great pleasure of building a family and a life with another person.  We need good men because men are at their core different from women, and women are at their core different from men, and these differences (whether traditional or non-traditional in their manifestations) provide balance, beauty, and character refinement.

Society is shouting, "We need good men!"

How do you make good men?  You raise good men. And if there isn't a good man in your life to help you do that, you find other good men to stand in that role as best as they can.  Good men must help other men to make men out of their men so that they can raise up good men, too.  We cannot complain about there being no good men out there if good men don't step in to make men good.

Stop asking "Why do we need men?" - that is not the question.  It should never be the question.  Substitute in any demographic and the question sounds preposterous, derogatory, and dangerous.  That question, when extended to its scariest places, devalues an entire population of our society. 

We need each and every kind of person to strive to be the best versions of themselves.  Let's stop asking dumb questions and start making good answers.

Flavor Enhancement

One of the benefits of cutting down or eliminating added sweeteners to food and eating mostly natural ingredients is that everything tastes better.  It isn't necessarily that the food itself changed, but the palate that is receiving the food is cleansed and ready to taste fully whatever it is that it is about to consume.  It isn't a carrot anymore, it is carrot PLUS, chicken PLUS, broccoli PLUS.  What disguised or dulled the senses before has been removed and now we can taste the full potential flavor of the food. 

It has been a while since I drank a Pepsi.  I used to drink Pepsi daily, even through the time when I was pregnant with Lydia (that could explain her energy levels).  I love Pepsi.  It is by far the superior beverage above all other carbonated beverages.  I would choose it over sweet tea and for sure over water.  Oh, sweet nectar of America! 

But Pepsi has high fructose corn syrup, an obvious added sweetener, and we cut that from our diets back in January.  A few months ago I was working a weekend conference at the University, manning the check-in table, and it was quiet.  All of the other tasks had been done, and it was just me. Alone. With a vending machine filled with Pepsi products.  Mmmm, Pepsi, I thought, and started to fish around in my purse for a dollar and a quarter.

I shimmied over to the vending machine and looked around.  No one was watching.  No one would need to know.  Twenty ounces of glorious syrupy soda would emerge from the vending machine into my eager, waiting hands.  I put in my money and the robotic arm retrieved a Pepsi from the top row, dropped it down the plastic tube to the bottom where it clunked against the doorflap.  I reached out for it, twisted off the cap and heard the k-shhhh of cold pop fizzling.  I took a sip and grimaced.

This was not at all what I expected.  Where was the rush of sweetness, the refreshing sizzle down my throat?  This was sticky and dried out my mouth after I swallowed; the aftertaste was terrible.  I rubbed my tongue against the roof of my mouth and tried to work the taste away.

It seems that not only does ingesting healthy foods bring out the powerful flavors of the good, it also strengthens our ability to taste how wretched the artificial and the processed really is, that its fast-and-easy benefits are far outweighed by its lack of quality and sustenance.

The more I ingest the real, the true, the pure, and the lovely in life (food, time with husband, time with children, working in the garden, laughter, friends), the less inclined I am to indulge in the false, the artificial, the impure, and the ugly that try to disguise themselves as virtuous and satisfying.  If I find myself faced with temptations, lust, anger, jealousy, fear, or insecurity after eating well for a long time, immersing myself in the things of God, his good word and his good people, listening for the Holy Spirit, then the bottled-up and processed gunk tastes bitter in my mouth.  I don't want anything to do with it.

Sure, after a while maybe my tastebuds would numb out to the high fructose corn syrup again and I'd actually like Pepsi, crave it, need it every day or else, but do I want to be ruled by this artificial happiness, this fast high and sudden plummet into lethargy so I need it again and again, more and more to achieve the same level of satisfaction?  No.

"Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him." - Psalm 34:8

Spring break 2012 - girls gone wild! With poetry!

I am sitting in the house I grew up in with all three of my kids sound asleep by 8 o'clock, drinking a glass of wine and writing poetry. This has been one of those amazing weeks you can never plan or count on happening for fear of disappointment, but when they come about, all you can really do is just rejoice and be glad.

We kicked off a week and a half vacation with the exciting news that my first full-length collection of poems was accepted for publication by Wipf and Stock Publishers. I don't have a contract in hand yet, so hopefully this announcement isn't premature. I am still in a bit of shock about this good news. I continue to be humbled and in awe at the work of Providence to have placed me in the unique and wonderful position I have with my job. The opportunities and relationships that have developed because of my work and the atmosphere I work in have really compelled me to write and propelled me forward in a way that would have been much more challenging were I to have gone about it my own way, and I thank God that he knows the plans he has for me better than I know for myself.

I am extremely grateful for the encouragement of my "poet mentor," Michael Miller, without whose encouragement I probably wouldn't have been writing as fervently or with as much zeal. There are of course many other influences (to be thanked at a later date) but most assuredly I wouldn't be here, writing about a forthcoming book, without Michael.

So with the happy news of a book coming out in the near future, we embarked on a trip to D.C. with the kids. It was our first family vacation with the five of us, and although we approached it with some apprehension, the trip went swimmingly, partly due to the opportunity to swim (ha ha ha). The kids all slept well in the hotel room, and that is the sort of thing that can make or break a trip for us. Henry was mostly cooperative except for riding in the car, which he hates, I guess, because he screamed 70% of the time. Other than that, we ate well, swam a bunch, saw lots of animals both stuffed and alive, and walked all over the place.

Our long weekend ended with a short stay at my in-laws and a visit with Brandon's brother who drove Great Mom-O up from Florida. It is always a joy to see any part of the Florida Wells clan. We returned home for a couple of days and enjoyed the brief respite of our own private quarters. AND! Aaaaaand, we found a new home for the dingo dog! Yes, that is right, Beans the great menace of a pooch has moved on to happier hunting grounds. No, he didn't die, but I am sure he feels like he is in heaven, with a family that likes him and another dog to play with in a yard three times as big. Poor guy. It was all sweet and no bitter in parting, especially when Lydia discovered her most recent favorite dolly had been disemboweled. Suddenly, Beans leaving for a new home wasn't such a bad idea. I really don't want to think about how much that dog has cost us in stuff he chewed up, never mind all of the usual doggy expenses.

Aaaaanyway, happiness flourishes in the Wells house once more now that our fourth unruly and disobedient child has moved out.

The remainder of our vacation (or my time off of work) has been spent with family. Brandon's grandma is beginning to lose her short term memory, or has lost it completely, depending on who you ask, and on top of that she's quite deaf. Upon returning from Florida, she needed to get some of her household affairs in order, so we have spent some time (hours) at her house helping her out (throwing out magazines from 2001, sorting through junk mail, setting up the voice mail on her phone, writing notes to help her remember what we did, etc.). She knows she is losing it, which makes it a little easier to help her. She receives the help with a little more grace and a little less stubbornness than she might have a year or two ago.

We met up with my family for my mom's 50th birthday mid-week, and we did a few errands at home, paid taxes, that sort of thing, then packed up again for Easter weekend. I colored eggs with the kids and made homemade peanut butter cups (mmmm google chocolate covered Katie and you will find the recipe) yesterday while Brandon did some yard work at his folks' house, and then we went out together alone for the first time in a while. It was a way overdue night out, in my opinion, and we had a grand time, listening to Blue Lunch at Northside in Akron. We even got up and danced a couple of songs. Anyone know a place to learn some couple dances in the Ashland area? I would love to force Brandon into it.

Finally, (whew! I bet you thought this would never end) I spent today with my cousins and their kids who all played together for about four hours with not a single whiny tear or complaint. It was amazing! I always feel as if going home to family or friends that have known me a long time is one of the rare moments when I feel most myself. I do not have to think much about what I say or how I might come off because, well, these people KNOW me. They know the awkward lanky me and they know the me that has three kids and a slightly crazy look in the eyes around 7 o'clock at night. They know the anti-alcohol (and everything else) me, and they know the wine guzzling me. Isn't there a George Strait song along these lines?  All of Sarah arrives around family. There's no leaving part of the package behind.

Now, back where we began, I am happy to wrap up this post with a pat on the back to myself for seven solid days of poem-ing for the start of National Poetry Month and writing a poem a day. Maybe I can whip out another book... ;). My best work is behind me, might as well call it a career and retire to needlepoint and quilting. Who am I kidding? I know nothing about either of those things. I'm doomed to a life of writing poetry, the only thing I can pretend to be good at ( yup, I'm going to end that sentence and this post with "at").

Picture Book

I don't like my title. Oh well.

Picture Book
His gentle dumb expression turnd at length
The Eye of Eve to mark his play; he glad
Of her attention gaind, with Serpent Tongue
Organic, or impulse of vocal Air,
His fraudulent temptation thus began.
- Book 9, lines 527-531, Paradise Lost by John Milton


My children identify animals,
name and order according to their kinds.
We turn to reptiles, son and daughter
shrieking, “Snakes are scary!”
and I agree, an after-Eden Eve.

But being ten, I watched a garter glide
between my hands, my voice tasting innocent
on his tongue. I followed his twist
over my wrist, the simple movement
like memory, so steady the snake’s body
trickled like mist pooling on leaves.

We turn the page in the picture book –
eagles, owls, cranes, flamingos, doves –
celebrate the birds of peace, strength, paradise
who cast their shadows on the earth
and dive, snatch the snake from wild grasses,
smooth path trailing away from a tree,
a corner of the garden stolen, hunger satisfied.

Sleeping Beauty, Part II

We watched Sleeping Beauty again tonight. Lydia loves this movie - she actually sits on the couch and watches the whole thing, which doesn't even happen with Shrek, and they LOVE Shrek. So, Sleeping Beauty is a huge hit for Lydia. After Elvis went to bed, I let Lydia stay up and watch the rest of the movie, although when Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather put the kingdom to sleep, I thought for sure Lydia was going to fall asleep too.

As we watched, though, I started to think about how allegorical this movie is to the God story. So often, the church is called Christ's bride. At the beginning of the movie, the beautiful Princess Aurora (dawn...), is born, and she is precious. But because Maleficent wasn't invited to participate in the whole affair, she picks up an eternal grudge against Aurora and is determined to destroy her. It is the same with people - Adam and Eve are tempted away from God and spend the rest of history trying to dodge Maleficent/Satan.

So to protect the bride, she's hidden away in the woodcutter's cottage until the ripening of time. They rename her Briar Rose. Then, at just the right time in history, the Prince meets the Princess, Christ comes to marry his Bride, the church. His father doesn't think he's picked the right girl -- the prince fell for a peasant girl?? -- but indeed, this is the true Bride of the Prince, both peasant girl and princess.

While the prince is going to meet his bride, all hell breaks loose, and Maleficent has her way with the princess, and then has her way with the prince. For a few hours, it looks as if evil has conquered all - she has the Prince in her dungeon, the whole kingdom is asleep, even the bride, and she is laughing.

And as the Prince battles all the forces evil can throw at him, he has to fight through a field of thorns (crown of thorns, anyone?). And then, not to give in too easily, Maleficent spirals in and faces the Prince head-to-head. And what does the Prince do but stab evil with the sword of truth.

Christ conquers death. He conquers Maleficent and awakens the church/bride/princess. The rest of the kingdom springs back to life and color, delighted and surprised to see the prince and princess come riding in to the kingdom. There is much rejoicing ;) And then, my favorite part, the bride/church spends the remainder of the movie arguing over whether the bride should be pink or blue. We always get hung up on the unimportant details, don't we?

It's always a pleasant surprise to find these parallels in movies. We learn so much from the stories that are told to us - I don't think we even realize it sometimes, but it's there. Good triumphing over evil, the Prince - Christ - rescuing the Princess - the Church/Bride of Christ, at all costs.

It's no wonder the fairy tales speak to our hearts, right? It's the same romance that has been told every generation since the beginning of time. God creates man for relationship, the relationship is fractured and complicated by evil, God spends the rest of history trying to draw us back to him, fighting over and over again for good. I love a good story.

Everything You Need to Know about the Enemy

You know those posters, "Everything I ever needed to know I learned in Kindergarten?" Well, tonight I bring you - everything I ever needed to know about the enemy I learned from watching Sleeping Beauty:

1.) The Enemy Shows Up Uninvited
2.) The Enemy Bestows Gifts, Which One Usually Expects to Be Good, but Certainly End in Death
3.) Getting Rid of All Possible Weapons of Evildoing Will Not Stop the Enemy
4.) You Can't Reason With the Enemy
5.) The Enemy Really Is "All Bad"

Fauna: Well, perhaps if we reason with her. Flora: Reason? Merryweather: With
Maleficent? Fauna: Well, she can't be all bad. Flora: Oh, yes, she can.

6.) The Enemy Ruins Everything - Especially One's Nicest Flowers
7.) The Enemy Anticipates Your Next Move
8.) The Enemy Knows a Lot, but Doesn't Know Anything about Love or Kindness
9.) The Enemy is Not Very Happy

Merryweather: But what won't she expect, she knows everything. Fauna: Oh
but she doesn't dear. Maleficent doesn't know anything about love, or
kindness, or the joy of helping earnest. You know, sometimes I don't think
she's really very happy.

10.) The Enemy has a Hoard of Servants to Help Find Our Weak Spots
11.) The Enemy Hunts Out All of Our Weak Spots, No Matter How Hard We Try to Hide
12.) The Enemy Tells Us the Worst-Case Scenario and Makes Us Believe It
13.) The Enemy Rejoices in Other People's Pain and Suffering

Maleficent: Come, my pet. Let us leave our noble prince with these happy
thoughts. A most gratifying day. For the first time in sixteen years I
shall sleep well.

14.) The Enemy Will Do Everything Possible to Keep the Story From Reaching its Happily Ever After
15.) The Enemy is a Huge, Fire-Breathing Dragon That Can Only Be Defeated by the Sword of Truth.

-----------------------------------

Brandon laughs because I love fairy tales. I love Disney movies - especially the older movies, but Disney has redeemed itself as of late, too, with such great movies as Meet the Robinsons (which I cry after, always), The Incredibles, Toy Story, and more. I love the princesses and their innocence, the way they wait to be rescued, the princes and their noble steed and their courage and the ways they romance the bride. I love the goofy supporting characters that bring along the lighter side and also have their own ways of trying to make it all better but inserting their own goofs in the process - unknowingly complicating the end results.

I love it all - even the villains, who give us such great lessons in the character of evil, the nature of evil, just like Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. She's wicked. She's miserable. She's convinced that if she makes the rest of the world miserable, it'll make her happy. Ah, yes, so easy to recognize evil when it's tall, dark, and grotesque. I wish it could be like that all of the time, instead of being enticing, attractive, fun, and only a little bit guilt-inducing or conscience-pricking.

I must go now - Meet the Robinsons is on, and I just can't help myself. I mean, there's a black hat with claws and one red eye. It has "evil" written all over it.