BEautiful!

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder...why don't more of us behold beauty?

I have a friend who used to regularly greet me by saying, "hello beautiful!"  This was often accompanied with a smile and hug...I knew she meant it.  I would not say that before that I had a bad self image but something about hearing that word associated with me on a regular basis gave me the extra push I needed to really see what she saw and to celebrate the beauty I beheld in the mirror each morning.

The thing I learned was not that I didn't need to be active, eat well, and consider what choices I make to feel better and look better.  But I learned that most of what I see is up to me...that is true about all kinds of beauty.  I sometimes look at crumbling buildings around town and see a beautiful image of use and life in community.  Sometimes I see the opportunities for renewal which are also beautiful, new life just waiting to be embraced by someone with the vision to see other possibilities.  


Lately I have had a number of conversations about how amazing it is to meet someone who believes that they are beautiful.  The self esteem debate has been going on a long time.  So what are the things that make for a self-confident person?  I have been giving this a lot of thought...partly because I really do believe I am beautiful and mostly because I see so much beauty in the people and the world around me that is dismissed.  It is hard to know how to help friends and others see beauty in themselves...beauty that is so evident to me.  So the struggle isn't how to see beauty but how to help one another see it in ourselves.

As someone who is fortunate enough to see beauty when I look into the mirror and in those around me I wondered about what makes me different?  I had a friend ask me what I thought had produced my embrace and happiness with myself.  After some reflection, I think that my parents gave me the most by celebrating who I was becoming, reminding me that God made me just the way I was, and by loving me regardless of the awkward growing phases and the fluctuations of health, weight, and activity.  I have never doubted their love for me and the value that they believe I have as a part of God's creation.  That is VERY important because things like guilt, fear, shame, and distrust seem to lead many of us to places of self-destruction, secrecy, and harmful cycles of bad habits.

There is plenty of information that is included in the "nurture" debate.  But my parents weren't the only ones...friends who went out of the way to let me know they appreciated me and valued my presence in their lives gave me so much as I learned what it was like to be loved and cared for.  I have been fortunate to have people in my life that made it a priority to share their love for me in overt and subtle ways that proved to create a foundation for loving acceptance of myself and the beauty that is all over the world! 

I don't know how to reproduce the things that I feel have given me the openness to see beauty in myself and others except for each of us to remind those around us of their beauty and works to change the way of beholding one another as we recognize all that is beautiful, valuable and loved! 

"Kindness in words creates confidence. / Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. / Kindness in giving creates love… / Perfect kindness acts without thinking of kindness."

-  Laozi, 570-490 BCE

The stump and the sprout

Growing up I went to summer camp every year.  I remember that for years the camp T-shirts had a picture of a stump with a new tree growing from the middle.  With each year the small tree grew and so did I.  The stump and sprout were on the road into camp and most years we would walk past it and hear the story.  How the tree fell, leaving the stump.  Then by some natural mystery another tree's seed landed on the stump and set down roots.  And despite the obstacles the tree sprouted and grew into something bigger and new. 

It always captured my imagination and still does.  The tree that sprouted was a totally different kind of tree, it shared some general characteristics but what grew in the place of the pine tree changed the look of the place. The acorn that landed there wasn't trying to take the place of the pine tree but there it was.  It could grow or die.  So in the infinite wisdom of nature and the right time and circumstances the acorn "decided" to grow!  And so it did...and was so novel that we put it on a T-shirt and told its story.  Because we all like to tell the story of something amazing happening, something unexpected!  It isn't everyday that this kind of thing happens.  Out of what looks, feels like and could be death comes life, beauty, and a new story. 

So something new can grow from something old but it is unlikely, if not impossible, for that new thing to create the same landscape that had been.  It isn't that the new is better, bad or battling for a place.  The new springs forth despite the obstacles because it is being called forth!  What an exciting prospect!  God is doing something new...always and it happens naturally but not without effort and significant change to what has been.  The new story does not negate the past but builds upon it quite literally to become.

Maybe you are noticing a theme here...there is so much in my life that feels like that acorn falling onto the stump of an amazing heritage, one that has given me my voice, my identity, my vision, my hope, my courage, and my dreams.  All those things from God and the people that have shown me God through their love and care over the years.  Are calling me to grow or die...it's a scary thing because either way things must die in order for this new life to emerge.

Obstacles and all

I want to grow,

to see what might come up. 

How will it change the world I see? 

What will this new landscape be? 

Will the story be told,

each time we pass it by?

How will we hear it?

Will groups of us drink in the hope,

inspiration, and beauty of this miracle?

Will we lament the loss 

at the cost of celebrating 

all that we gain?  

Might we find the gift

in all that has come and gone, 

instead of waiting to return 

to a past that has given us

all it could?  

Will the questions stir

our hearts 

with vision and hope

or harden them to all that is unfamiliar?  

Where can we find the grace for all,

no matter how or what we see?

Obstacles and all

may we be guided by our nature, 

as creations made in the image of God,

finding ourselves shaped and becoming

part of the landscape

that invites us and others to marvel

at the miracles of this world

and the necessity of all things: the past, present and future.  

Where will we fall?  

How will we grow

in the stump or not...

Finding hope in the process as much as the outcome, 

and always cherishing the love 

that has always been and will always be

creating you, creating me

making a new something to view.