Loveliness

Sometimes I notice that a particular person, subject or idea is coming up over and over in my life. I heard once that repetition is God's way of underlining something for you.

The subject of beauty and body image bombards us all every day, but I have been keenly aware of it in the past week or so.

I think it started when a friend and I had lunch on Saturday. She was telling me about a cousin of hers who is overweight, and recently discovered that her struggle is at least partially due to an allergy to wheat, which now limits a great deal of what she is able to eat.

At Thanksgiving, this cousin had become very upset with two of their other relatives (of average weight) who are perpetually dieting. The two are constantly talking about what the best new diet is, how much they lost, how much they ate, calories, carbs, etc, and their weight balloons up and down from month to month; diet to diet. The clash came when one of the dieters dished up a teency slice of Thanksgiving pie and the other (her accountability partner) called her on it. "Are you sure you want to do that?" The cousin with the wheat allergy left the table and said: "That's f'd up."

My friend went on to tell me that that story had prompted a conversation between she and her sister, who thought that the overweight cousin had just been jealous of the thinner dieters. Her view was that everyone wants to be as skinny as possible; and that everyone is jealous of anyone smaller than themselves. My friend disagreed, suggesting that when you are truly restricted from enjoying food because of health reasons, it upsets you when you see people who could otherwise be enjoying it wasting that gift; and questioned the view that everyone is jealous and no one is really okay with themselves as they are.

Then last night, Jason and I watched the documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster. I highly recommend this movie. The story follows three brothers, who grew up stocky and average and hitched their wagons to the star of professional bodybuilding & wrestling. Though a lot of the movie focuses on the controversy surrounding anabolic steroids, the most compelling parts are some of the interviews with the men who are so desperately clinging to this never-ending pursuit of perfection. One man is living in a van in the parking lot of a gym. He is aging, and has absolutely nothing, but when he talks about finally getting to that point of ultimate strength, he says that will mean everything to him. One of the documentarian's brothers says he knows he is meant for greatness; not the pathetic normal life he's been living. Instead of enjoying his beautiful wife, accountant job and caring family; he is ever-fixed on the life ahead- when he can move to California and be discovered for his super-body. With juiced-up role models like Hulk Hogan and Arnold; the men are so dissatisfied with themselves as they are, and so desperate to legitimize themselves, that even when it may cost them something huge; (like their marriage or the chance to have a child since steroids can cause sterility) the use of steroids is a no-brainer for them. Several men interviewed voiced a similar view to my friend's sister's: "Why wouldn't you want to be as strong as you could possibly be?"

They are so convinced that being a more perfect version of what they are now will solve their problems and they will finally be able to be happy. None seem to realize that the pursuit of perfection is never-ending and always just beyond reach. But they will keep straining to get there- no matter what the cost.

I identify so strongly with those men and with perpetual dieters and I recognize their thought process in me. I have innumerable times thought that if I could just make my body better; I would be happier and more deserving of love. I have cycled through periods of healthy satisfaction with my whole self; to periods of total desperation and resolutions for my body's immediate revamp...and back again.

I know how ridiculous it is...that the important thing is to take care of your body and be healthy- that skipping dessert is not how I want to spend my life- and that when I'm 80 or dead I hopefully will have a lot more interesting things about me than what kind of body I had- and that there thousands of other parts of my inner self that I would rather put that energy into developing- that the things I compare myself with are ridiculous and utterly unattainable -and yet I still hear that little voice that tells me if I were just a little more perfect....

I know we all feel that in some way or another. If it's not body image- it's something else. It's part of being broken- being human. We all feel that gaping want for something unnameable...and it's appealing to think there's something we can do...something we can achieve or attain with really hard work that will finally plug it up once and for all.

The mother of the three boys is in tears at one point in the documentary, questioning what she might have done or not done that caused all her boys to have grown up with this dissatisfaction with themselves. She reminds one son that he is fearfully and wonderfully made and that God made him exactly as he is for a reason. It's powerful.

I'll conclude this post with a poem by Galway Kinnell featured in Anne Lamott book (pictured left) I'm reading. It really moved me.

St. Francis and the Sow
by Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
or everything flowers,
from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.