Beauty and Big Hips

From The Eyes of The Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found, 1999
by Frederick Buechner

In speaking about his mother:
" I always felt [it was a] curse upon her of having been born blue-eyed and beautiful, with the result that she never had to be especially kind and loving in order to draw people to her because they were drawn to her anyway."
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So there was this girl that I went to college with named Ashley.  I really didn't know her all that well - she lived in my dorm but on a different hall than I did.  All I really knew about Ashley was that she was gorgeous.  So much so that my friends and I started calling her "Pretty Ashley."  (Coincidently, one girl in my close group of friends was also named Ashley.  We did not intend for the adjective to become a point of comparison between the two girls with the same name, but I have not ever asked my friend if she was specifically hurt by the nickname for the other.)  So conversations might be like this:  "Pretty Ashley was at the gym this morning with me" or "Oh, Pretty Ashley was looking for her backpack - have you seen it?"  I don't remember if we ever called her Pretty Ashley to her face, but to this day I think about her as not Ashley, but Pretty Ashley.

We females are great at comparing ourselves to others - as my friends and I secretly did every time we saw Pretty Ashley on campus.  I know that many "ologists" (Psychologists, Sociologists, Anthropologists) have scientific and cultural explanations for our tendency to always size each other up.  It's an instinct thing - we are competing with each other for a mate.  It's social - we associate beauty with wealth, so our chubby pale ancestors were beautiful because they didn't have to work and had money for food, but now tan and skinny is a cultural sign of wealth.  In the end, I am sure that there are many logical reason that women walk into a room and immediately rate themselves against the others.  "Well I am bigger than her, but prettier than that other girl..."  Still, it can't be healthy and I wish I could stop myself from participating in this culture of comparison.

When I first read this quote from Buechner (Sorry - I didn't intend to post twice in a row from the same author) I was shocked.  I neglected to underline it, as I was reading in the pre-kindle days.  Still, the idea that Buechner planted has lingered in my consciousness for years, so I finally hunted and found the direct quote:  "She never had to be especially kind and loving in order to draw people to her because they were drawn to her anyway."  


What an insightful turn of perspective!  Is it possible that my "Coomer Boomer"* hips have given me a wider sense of understanding?  Could it be that my crooked nose has helped me to love straighter?  Maybe my muffin top shaped my peaceful nature.  If so, than did my symmetrical lips cause me to talk negatively about others?  Did my pretty hair cause me to see others as ugly?


Now I know that in many ways, this is a gross oversimplification and it does not work out.  I know that a healthy self-esteem is good.  It's normal for me to love and hate parts of myself.  After all, there are plenty of unattractive people who are cruel and mean, and plenty of beautiful people who are warm and kind.  Still, thinking about body image from Buechner's perspective helps me to shut out the negative self talk, the objectified comparisons, and the unjustified superiority - and I am guilty of all three.     



*"Coomer Boomer" is the name that my mom's generation of sisters and cousins have given to the genetically wide hips that run the family.  My generation has adopted this nickname as well.  Honestly, I have never met a stronger or more self sufficient group of women than the Coomer Clan, and I'll take these hips all day if it means that I can inherit an ounce of the drive and grace that comes with them. 

Prayer

From Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, 1979

by Frederick Buechner

"What about when the boy is not healed?"
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Because I have been traveling and working crazy hours and not updating my blog, I decided today to forgo the "original" part and stick to some pure "plagiarism."  Enjoy this message from Frederick Buechner, one of my favorites.

"Everybody prays whether he thinks of it as praying or not.  The odd silence you fall into when something very beautiful is happening or something very good or very bad.  The ah-h-h-h! that sometimes floats up out of you as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the sky-rocket bursts over the water.  The stammer of pain at somebody else’s pain.  The stammer of joy at somebody else’s joy.  Whatever words or sounds you use for sighing with over your own life.  These are all prayers in their way.  These are all spoken not just to yourself but to something even more familiar than yourself and even more strange than the world. 

According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it.  The images he uses to explain this are all rather comic, as though he thought it was rather comic to have to explain it at all.  He says God is like a friend you go to borrow bread from at midnight.  The friend tells you in effect to drop dead, by t you go on knocking anyway until finally he gives you what you want so he can go back to bed again (Luke 11:5-8).  Or God is like a crooked judge who refuses to hear the case of a certain poor widow, presumably because he knows there’s nothing much in it for him.  But she keeps on hounding he hears her case just to get her out of his hair (Luke 18: 1-8).  Even a stinker, Jesus says, won’t give his own child a black eye when he asks for peanut butter and jelly, so how all the more will God when his children----(Matthew 7:9-11).

Be importunate, Jesus says—not, one assumes, because you have to beat a path to God’s door before he’ll open it, but because until you beat a path maybe there’s no way of getting to your door.  “Ravish my heart,” John Donne wrote.  But God will not usually ravish.  He will only court.

Whatever else it may or may not be, prayer is at least talking to yourself, and that’s in itself not always a bad idea.

Talk to yourself about your own life, about what you’ve done and what you’ve failed to do and about who you are and who you wish you were and who the people you love are and the people you don’t love too.  Talk to yourself about what matters most to you, because if you don’t, you may forget what matters most to you.

Even if you don’t believe anybody’s listening, at least you’ll be listening.

Believe Somebody is listening.  Believe in miracles.  That’s what Jesus told the father who asked him to heal his epileptic son.  Jesus said, “All things are possible to him who believes,: And the father spoke for all of us when he answered, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:14-29).

What about when the boy is not healed?  When, listened to or not listened to, the prayer goes unanswered? Who knows?  Just keep praying, Jesus says.  Remember the sleepy friend, the crooked judge. Even if the boy dies, keep on beating the path to God’s door, because the one thing you can be sure of is that down the path you beat with even your most half-cocked and halting prayer the God you call upon will finally come, and even if he does not bring you the answer you want, he will bring you himself.  And maybe at the secret heard of all our prayers that is what we are really praying for."

Amen!