The Truth about
Beauty ~
(also known as why you should take your child/youth/self
to Sunday school!)
There
is a YouTube video I wanted to use as a reading this morning but it seemed to
me a tad too jarring for a Sunday morning worship experience. It begins
with an image of a young girl. Perhaps second or third grade. She has a beautiful fresh face, and reddish
hair, She is bright eyed and alive. She
seems to be looking into the camera with a curiosity.
Next,
you see the word ‘onslaught’ and then the song begins. “Here it comes, here it comes, here it
comes!!!!!
AND
THEN images fly one after another in a frenzy of color, skin and makeup. Images of scantily clad model-thin, heavily
made up women. The images are highly
sexualized. As these images fly by, selling
undergarments, perfume, diet aids, clothing and food substitutes, words appear
--- thin, diet, transform, skin, better, smooth away. “you’ll look younger, smaller, lighter,
tighter, softer, thinner”.
Next
a young woman in underwear on a scale in a time lapse series that has her body
grow and shrink and grow and shrink.
Images of a bulimic episode fade off to a woman getting breast implants
followed by images of cosmetic surgery, markers drawing on bodies and faces
followed by removals of some pieces, additions of others, changing a body into
something it was not, has never been, somehow longs to be.
A
lone sentence appears on the screen – “Talk to your daughter before the beauty
industry does.” You see the little girl
once more. Now walking with classmates. Her hair bouncing just so, her mouth sporting
lipstick, her gaze somehow different – as if for an audience rather than for
herself. No longer with curious eyes
looking out to see, rather waiting to be seen, judged, affirmed.
The
whole thing takes 1 minute and twenty seconds.
This
short is part of a wonderful series by Dove – you know, the soap people. You may recall an earlier short, called
Evolution. Using time-lapse photography
it showed a woman being made-up, hair styled and “beautified.” Then showed how
her already beautiful image was altered using a computer program. Her eyes and mouth made larger, eyebrows
raised higher, neck stretched longer and pieces on each side cut away to make
it thinner. The results appeared on a billboard. Essentially an unachievable beauty being
portrayed as ideal and true.
These
films and others are part of a program Dove has to reclaim and rebuild
self-esteem in girls. One short shows
images of young girls with words suggesting what is on their minds: She wishes she didn’t have freckles, she
wishes she wasn’t fat, she wishes she had blond hair
Another film shows girls in gymnastics, ballet and swimming,
along with the captions – “will skip gymnastics” “will drop out of ballet” “will
stop swimming lessons.” And the fact that of 302 girls aged 10-17, half dropped
out of physical activities like these because they felt bad about how they
looked.
Another
includes a young girl telling how her waist isn’t thin enough, another how she
isn’t pretty so people don’t talk to her at school, another recalling the first
time she was told she was ugly and then a young woman, now mother, telling of
how she came back to school one fall terribly thin and people started talking
to her and she felt popular. That same
year she was hospitalized from anorexia.
The focus is on girls in these series but it wouldn’t be
hard to image what they would look like if they were made for boys - Images of
muscles, square jaws, sculpted arms, business suits, weights, sports equipment,
words like earn more, wealth, power. Then the thoughts --- I hope I won’t lose
my hair. I hope I don’t look gay. I wish I were taller, stronger, hairier, less
hairy, better, better, better.
And what would we imagine for our
transgender youth – even here in this liberal, progressive slice of our
comparatively liberal progressive country, the majority message is clear – abnormal. And our gay, lesbian and bisexual
youngsters? Our differently abled
children? Our Muslim children? Our Atheist children?
To be sure --- not all the messaging out there is
negative – In the music industry, we have Pink’s song – pretty, pretty please –
don’t you ever feel like you less than, less than perfect and Lady Gaga’s – Born this Way - I’m beautiful in my way – I was born this way.
And there are champions trying to
change the media industry –champions like 14 year old Julia Bluhm, from
Waterville, Me., who started an online petition to get Seventeen Magazine to print
at least one unaltered picture a month. She was frustrated that fellow ballet students
were complaining they were fat. Her
online petition drew over 80,000 signers within days, altered how Seventeen
uses their photos and helped birth Seventeen’s Body Peace Treaty. A document that calls teens to seventeen
different promises, including ‘know that I am already beautiful just the way I am.’
But it’s not the mission of Seventeen, nor the music
industry or even those who sell soap, unless they choose it to be. With gratitude to Dove, for their exceptional
work, I invite you to consider the power
and consistency and strength of the message our young people are fed every
day. The jarring part of that Dove video
was that the rapid-fire imaging is true.
It’s everywhere! Even the most
protective parents aren’t able to shield their children.
In a world so well equipped to
‘speak’ to our children and to ‘teach’ our children what is good and what is
beautiful, what is worthy, the need to be grounded by the truth has
never been more important. The truth
that each and every one of them is worthy, is good, is beautiful. Each and every one of them. That
message needs to be written in permanent ink on every soul as an inoculation to
the whirlwind media messaging of our world.
Further we need to place a heart on each of those innocent souls
reminding them they are loved. Not
because of the clothes they wear, the way they look, the things they do. Loved, because they deserve to be loved. And they deserve to be children. And after we’ve written that message on their
soul and etched that heart, we need to
point to the golden thread that connects each soul together and remind them
that they are part of the human family – brothers, sisters, siblings all and
that the message within telling them they are worthy and good and beautiful,
well that is written inside of their world siblings too --- the child on the
playground they aren’t too fond of, the boy who wears the too-short pants and
the new student who sorta looks like a girl and sorta looks like a boy – that
student has the heart and messages too.
And we need to check to be sure the message and the heart never, ever
get written over or laser-beamed off.
Because what we know is that they will need those when they are 14 and
18 and 22 and 29 and 30 and when they are each of our ages too. How
many here, I wonder, look into a mirror and see beauty? How many of us are immune from the years of
images, pounded at our doors? Our
intellect may tell us something different, but I know I still react to what is
portrayed, and has always been portrayed as the beauty ideal.
The messages that tell us we need more, should eat less,
weigh less, drink this, do that, be that all so we can be better-off,
better-liked, better-whatever ------ it’s aimed at us too.
Have we forgotten the message once
written on our souls? That we are
worthy, good and beautiful. And the
little heart to remind us we were loved-just as we are. And the golden thread reminding us we were
all connected. Or was it ever written at
all?
I know mine was. I
was lucky. I was raised in a Sunday
school just like this one, went to Sunday services and youth group and
continued wherever I lived. I recall
with clarity and fondness explaining to a summer friend that at school I had my
jock friends, my smart friends, my wild friends and my church youth group
friends. I was as clear then as now what
connected us. Jock friends - Sports,
smart friends - AP classes, wild friends - smoking pot in the cemetery, youth
group friends - being accepted and accepting for exactly who we were, together. It’s remarkable when I gaze back at who was
in that group. Not a one overlapped with
my other friends. But I knew what it was
that connected us and I treasure it still.
I
know what I learned each of those groups.
Teamwork and good sportsmanship with the jock group. Study habits, writing, analysis and debate
skills in that academic group. Being outraegeous – and things I won’t list from
my wild group. Being accepted just as I
am and accepting others from my church group.
Not from a minister, though there is one I adored, not from a religious
educator, though our children’s minister was one of the UU pioneers, not even a
youth group leader, though they were great too – it was something larger than
any one piece. It was the lived faith
evident when I was there, in worship or class or play or youth group --- and in
how I witnessed those same people out in the community. The something larger
wasn’t a deity, for me, but it was as grand, perhaps more grand. It was a call to a truer, better self that
started with this baseline understanding that you were worthy, beautiful and
loved. And that so was the person to
your left, to your right, regardless of what they believed, wore or drove.
And that’s when and where the message was written on my
soul. And the little heart was etched,
telling me I was loved – not just by my family, but by an entire community of
people who agreed that it was how it should be.
And that’s when I learned about that golden thread that couldn’t be
broken. That no matter what happened in
my world, I was connected. That I would
be cared about --- but that I had to care too.
Those three things have served me
all of my life. They anchor me. They inform me in all things. And when I am lost, as can happen to any of
us on our journeys, they save me. They
and the community that holds them dear.
I don’t imagine anyone is surprised by the onslaught of
images I shared today. I think we’ve
become pretty accustomed to the world of messaging and perhaps even believe
ourselves immune. But the costs we pay
in our children’s souls is hefty and it’s growing. It’s not just about beauty; it’s about
consumerism and success and what defines being a good person, leading a good
life. Those aren’t things I want defined by
business.
Here we offer something to
counter that messaging. Something to
save our children when they get lost. Something to supplement the messaging in the
family home and help children see it’s not just their parents.
Here is where you’ll hear how beautiful and worthy you
are. Here you will feel loved and
accepted. Here you will learn
about that golden thread. You’ll learn
how to tug it when you need help and how to respond when you feel tugged.
Here is where a child can
learn that the stone washed jeans she wants impact the health of another girl
her age or that the bag she absolutely has to have was made by children who
must labor if their family is to eat. Where
a child can learn that no one person holds the truth to the largest questions
in life and that his own experience with awe, wonder and wondering is just as
important as mine. Where a child can
learn that adults are flawed, and funny, and ... when they are their best
selves ---- pretty interesting conversation partners.
Where a child can hear and sing the hymn “How could
anyone ever tell you, you were anything less than beautiful? How could anyone ever tell you, you were less
than whole? How could anyone fail to
notice that your loving is a miracle? How
deeply you’re connected to my soul.” Where
a child can go with their entire self, broken or whole or somewhere in between
and be loved by a community who really, really, really believes that they are
treasured, just as they are....... not by one minister or one religious
educator but by an entire community who believes such things to be true.
No child, or adult, will escape the messaging the world
offers – My prayer this morning, is that each of them finds a place like this
to tell them it’s just not true. Then hug them, love them and offer them something
far better.
Dove YouTube links = Beauty Pressure http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei6JvK0W60I
Growing Up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElKFK6rRHNY
Libby Roderick’s song “How
Could Anyone” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQ5pwstX-4
Seventeen’s Body Peace Treaty http://www.seventeen.com/health/tips/body-peace-pledge
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