Beauty Culture

            

            

Do you look into the scale on your bathroom floor like the Queen in Snow White looked into her magic mirror? Do you wait for those numbers to tell you whether or not you're beautiful, like the Queen waited for the mirror to tell her? Do you depend on those numbers in your scale to determine how you feel about yourself?

            And if those magic numbers appear "telling" you you aren't beautiful, do you react like the Queen? She was told by her mirror that she wasn't the fairest in the land, and so she went to GREAT lengths in order to make herself the fairest one again. But then looking haggard and old, the Queen died in the pursuit.

            To what end do we find ourselves if the magic numbers on the scale "tell" us we aren't beautiful? Under-eating, over-eating? Both? Depressed, jealous? Both? Complete discontentment with ourselves?

            American Beauty Culture is saying, "DON'T be fat." While American Glutton Culture is saying, "DO eat deliciously and often and lots of it." 

            This mixed message is manifesting itself in thousands of bathrooms, resulting in eating disorders and mental disorders. 

            Don't be confused into thinking that beauty is determined by the numbers on a scale, or the numbers written on the inside of a pair of jeans. Wikipedia describes beauty, "as being in balance with nature." Health nuts are always telling us this, with their breathy voices, closed eyes, and clasped hands over heart, "Balance." Beauty is not tied to numbers on a scale or numbers inside your jeans.

            One time, while still a slave to Beauty=Numbers, I was trying to be healthy-beautiful, so I decided to find out my BMI. I am unashamed to say that the BMI's results for me are that I am "Slightly Obese." All that did for me was ruin my week, and give my husband something to tease me about when I eat too many cookies (or all of them). Health is important, but it's not what makes a person beautiful. So what is it then?

            How bout we get a French poet from the 13th Century in the house to tell us what makes a person beautiful. Come Jean de Meun, come sir, and whisper sweet french nothings into our ears.

                       

                        

"Certainly, if the truth be told, women give great shame to God [...] they do not consider themselves rewarded with the beauty that God gives them. Each one has on her head a crown of flowers, of gold, or of silk. She preens herself and primps as she goes through the town showing herself off, and thus [...] to increase or perfect her beauty, she wants to draw onto her head an object lower and more base than she. Thus she goes around despising God because she considers him inadequate, and in her foolish heart she thinks to herself that God did her a great outrage in that, when he proportioned the beauty in her, he acquitted himself very negligently. Therefore she searches for beauty in creations that God made with much worse appearance, things like metals or flowers or other strange things."

           

            Do we search for beauty in eye liners and hair dyes? In blush and lipstick? In hot dresses and skinny jeans? Do we search for beauty in piercings and hair styles? 

            Beauty is not found in these things, or in numbers, or in BMI's. Beauty isn't found in ribbons or tags. It isn't found in packages, boxes or bags. Beauty doesn't come from a store. Beauty, is about something more... it's about you. God created you, and your beauty is great in His eyes.