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.

Most Memorable Moment: Ten Years Later

Last night, we went to Bull and Bones Brewhaus and Grill in Blackburg, Virginia (look at that nice alliteration... it's even a poetic location) for karaoke and drinks.  Brandon asked me what moment is most memorable for me from the last ten years together, not counting our wedding day and the births of our children, and I was stumped.  Most memorable?  God.

Maybe singing "Love Shack" with Brandon on the stage of our honeymoon cruise, or the long walk back from nearly drowning my new husband off a Key West beach, sandy flippers and snorkles in hand.

Maybe the day we came home to the house on Leland to find that our dog, Tex, had eaten everything in the kitchen.  The loaf of bread.  The plastic around the loaf of bread.  A candle.  A coffeepot.  A chocolate Easter bunny.  We were stunned.  We were certain he would die, but he didn't!

Maybe the night I brought both pregnancy tests downstairs grinning to Brandon sitting on the couch watching the Indians with Tex stretched out next to him, and he said, "Wow.  Wow."  And I said, "I know!"

Maybe driving all over Akron and Hartville looking at houses under $50,000 feeling downtrodden, rolling over the tip of a hill and seeing a for sale sign on a burned down house, or walking through the house that was sinking at such an angle into the earth that we could barrel roll down the living room floor, until finally we found the house on Ardella, olive green siding and a fenced-in backyard for Tex, enough bedrooms for a bunch of babies.

Maybe the day we expected to find out that we were twelve weeks along only to find out that we had miscarried our first baby, and we stood alone in the parking lot, summer sun bright and hot above us.  "I guess I should go back to work," I sniffled, head low and tears a slow leak, and Brandon put his hands on my face and whispered, "Be strong and courageous, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go," and we held each other, facing the first intimate grief of marriage together.

Maybe six months later, standing in a restaurant after the boys basketball team won a tournament game in East Liverpool (right? was that where we were?), getting the call that our nephew was born but that he was struggling in the NICU and feeling so helpless there, states away from our brother and sister-in-law, how the parents and basketball team all bowed their heads and prayed for Braden, for Ben and Kelly, for health and miracles and life.

Maybe when we brought Lydia home to that house on Ardella, our two crazy redbone coonhounds ready to meet the new addition.

Maybe "I see a firetruck, a bright red SHINY firetruck!" for Thanksgiving, celebrating Braden's second birthday (was it his second? do you remember? time goes so quickly and it all runs together, and now I don't know, was Lydia there for the firetruck or was that the next year?).

Maybe our trip to Butler, PA, when we felt the push to start looking at seminary, the need to move on to the next big thing.

Maybe the day we realized if I took the job at Ashland, he could quit his job, and we'd still be fine, actually better than fine, and maybe even start seminary.

Maybe walking on the towpath in the valley with Lydia right after Elvis came home from the NICU himself, and Brandon wore our strong, fragile, healthy but so sick before little boy in the Baby Bjorn, and the light danced through the leaves, and we prepared to go house hunting again, and then how every house was like something from Flip This House - the Bacon House, the Flea House, the Power Line House, the Putt Putt House - until we found the house on Morgan, a clean slate of white with so many walls to paint, so many ways to make it ours.

Maybe the day we decided to step out on faith and start to tithe regularly.  Maybe the call later that afternoon asking Brandon to work for ESPN.

Maybe every trip we've taken tagged on to work where we've eaten good meals and drank good drinks and slept in large beds, work as the brackets around relaxation.

Maybe every time I've worshiped next to Brandon in church, our fingers intertwined, or the time at Hudson during the sermon when we watched the bump of Lydia's elbow or knee move across my abdomen, or every time we have held a baby during a praise song, or every time we've walked with Lydia and Elvis to the communion table, the kids eager for bread to fill the empty spaces.

Maybe every time Brandon and the kids have walked over to my office on campus just to stop by.

Maybe every time we have sung, "Jackson" by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash.

Maybe every time we've quoted Dumb and Dumber or When Harry Met Sally or The Anchorman or Forget Paris.

Maybe every time we have walked nine holes in the fading fall light.

Maybe every time Henry says, "Juice, Dad, Mom?"

Maybe every family picnic or backyard barbecue with friends.  Maybe every fourth of July picnic.  Every Christmas morning.

Maybe every time we have danced slow or fast, in our kitchen, in our living room, after a Christmas party with Lisa and Zack, at the Boot, at the Dusty Armadillo, at Thirsty Cowboy, at weddings, singing "and we'll remember them!", singing "He stopped loving her today..." and always, always laughing, always smiling, always his rough cheek against mine.

Maybe every time we have forgiven each other.  Maybe every time I have been forgiven.

These, yes, these, and so many, so many other memorable moments that have comprised ten years of laughter, ten years of learning, ten years of growth, ten years of grace, ten years of choosing each other, and yes of course ten years of love, ten years, ten years, ten years.

Favorite memorable moment?  If a moment can stretch across a decade, then, this last one.  This last decade, with my husband.  Every happy second, every difficult season, every grief, every mercy.  Everything.

Book 6, 2012: Beautiful and Pointless by David Orr

I just finished Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr, and now I am sad.  It isn't often that I come across a person who cares so much about poetry but is equally as honest about the state of contemporary poetry, and that willingness to illuminate the reality of modern poetry and call it like it is was refreshing, humbling, and entertaining.  I'm not sad because of his honesty or the bleak portrait of modern poetry.  I'm sad because he was light, funny, and accessible, and now it is over, and now I must go back to actually reading contemporary poetry (ha ha ha).

Y'all know that I love poetry (really, I love poetry, not just like).  I come to poetry mostly from Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein and the simple pleasure of the way words felt in my mouth as I learned to read.  The music of poetry and the written word is unlike lyrics in that the rhythm resides solely in the words-- it cannot be buttressed by notes and chords, by percussion or strings.  That's where my love of poetry starts-- in play and in joy.  Plus, I am tone deaf, and while I will sing (badly), singing is a distinctly different kind of pleasure that involves high notes, low notes and all that fall between, while one focus of poetry is on the way the words rub up against each other, in stresses and unstressed syllables, in alliterations and rhyme. It sings without vocal range (thank God for that).

Next I find the poems I like most offer a magnified glimpse.  At something.  Anything, really.  Like a photographer, the poet zooms in and says, look what I found.  Or, listen to this experience I had once.  Or, doesn't this remind you of this other thing?  I love the metaphor.  I love the hidden truth revealed.  I love the "ah ha!" moment when I discover what the writer discovered, and I love to be on the writing end of that "ah ha!" moment, experiencing the surprise, too.  I like poems that invite me over for a cup of tea.

But I also like poems with depth and feeling, poems that struggle with questions-- big and little ones--poems that make demands, poems that are so personal they fold in on themselves and become universal.  I love poems rich in detail and rooted in scene.  I love storytelling and narrative, form and freeverse.  I even love the poems that require several run-throughs before the meaning reveals itself, if at all, poems with complex syntax that I have to cut into small pieces and digest slowly before I have any idea what's really going on besides initial awe.

So these are some of the reasons why I love poetry.  What is brilliant about Beautiful & Pointless is that Orr does not set out to defend poetry as the Art of Arts.  He shares with the reader a panoramic shot of the world of modern poetry, and he nails it, all of it-- the ego, the rubbing of elbows, the academic world, the private world, the public poet, the business of endorsements, the poem about the poem, and, most importantly, the reality that is so often forgotten in poetic circles, the fact that all of the people who actually read and value poetry could comfortably fit into one large athletic complex. 

This reality, for me, isn't discouraging.  There are plenty of niche groups in the world who are passionate about interests I have no desire to pursue (i.e., Star Trek. Basket Weaving. Hot Air Ballooning. Rowing. Etc.), and none of them are bemoaning the state of the world, the general neglect of their Art, or why collecting stamps hasn't entered the realm of popular culture. 

At the end of the century, maybe a dozen dead poets will find their work in the Norton Anthology tortured college freshman will read and be confused by.  The likelihood that I am one of those dead poets by 2100 is pretty, pretty slim (the likelihood that I AM a dead poet by 2100 is almost guaranteed, unless I live to be 118), SO, I think I will write whatever the heck I want to write, however the heck I want to write it, and I better darn well have a good time doing it, because chances are me and a handful of my closest friends and family will read the things, and then just two or three will actually care, so if I'm not having fun along the way, then why, why keep it up? 

I love poetry.

Read Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr.  You might not walk away wanting to jump into the latest issue of Poetry Magazine or jump online to order a subscription for Rattle, but you will have a fresh perspective on the wild and crazy world of the contemporary poet, you will laugh a little-- mostly at yourself, if you are a poet.

(Chiseling away at my book goal for 2012! Have you read any good poets lately?  Or good books about poetry?)