I've been thinking about body image lately, not in a personal, "how do I look?" way, but in the context of understanding my body's function and appearance in spiritual terms. My pondering began earlier this month while reading a poignant entry (
Poodle Head and other body issues) in my friend, M's, blog.
I recognized my 3rd-grade self in M's post (only it was my chubbiness, rather than a poodle-head hair cut, drawing negative attention to me). I also recognized my current self, a mother of a 9 year old, 3rd-grade girl. Like M, I want to "raise a girl who feels good about herself" and, like M:
I ask myself every day how I am
going to do that for her. The bumbling answer is often to be a good role model:
to fight, accept, ignore, and change the world when those things are called
for. (M, 2012)
In a follow-up post,
Poodle-Head, redux, M. shares a less bumbling, more specific answer. To raise a child "who feels good about herself," we need to "make our bodies a worship of the world. . .[not] an enemy to be broken but a thing to be honored in every way" (M, 2012).
We need to, M writes, make a ritual of seeing the good in our bodies:
In silence
In the music of physical movement
In recognizing its boundaries and limits
In pushing them (scraped knees ARE an essential worship of this body)
In taking in what's good (food? ideas? emotions?) and being willing to
let go of what's not. (M, 2012)
Poodle-Head, redux energized me, as a parent. I shared the post on Facebook, imploring my Facebook friends, "Can we PLEASE all do this?" I went to bed, thinking about the next day and how I would honor my body, and model that honoring for my children (take them on a nature walk?). If you, dear reader, have read any of my previous entries in this blog, you will not be surprised to learn that morning's arrival signaled the end of my enthusiasm and by the end of the week, I still had not taken that nature walk with my girls. This does not mean that I no longer felt concerned about fostering a positive body image in my daughters. Just as I want to write my novel but lack follow-through and focus, so do I lack follow-through and focus in this area of my life, as well.
Why? What makes it so hard to do the things in life we not only think or know we should do, but those things we even
want to do?
Sunday brought me some insight. My pastor, Reverend Michael Lowry, spoke on
John 10: 1-10. For those unfamiliar with this passage or the bible (or those, like me, who may recognize stories but not have any idea of their chapter and verse), John 10 is one of Jesus' famous parables, in which he likens his followers to sheep and himself as the shepherd, and even the gatekeeper of said sheep.
Reverend Michael built his sermon, "
One True Voice," around Jesus' statement that the sheep know the voice of their gatekeeper but do not know the voices of thieves and bandits who wish to steal them. Luckily for me, Reverend Michael posted a copy of his sermon on his blog, so I can quote him directly instead of trying to remember his exact words. Reverend Michael explains:
Jesus is not really talking about the risks of shepherding; rather about the risk to our lives that arise from the fake and hollow voices that seek to call us away from good and right pathways. Jesus does say that the sheep won’t listen because they know the voice of their gatekeeper, who is Jesus himself, who came “so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of,” as The Message translates it. Which is a beautiful assurance – and yet, you and I know that the sheep rustlers of this world are many, and oftentimes it becomes very difficult for us to know which voice is that of God in Christ and which is not.
Truth be told, some of those competing voices are enticing indeed – they emanate from our need for connectedness; for popularity; for security in life and living; the desire for wealth and power; sometimes it comes out of the warped view our modern culture has of what makes someone attractive or desirable or of value. (Lowry, 2012, bold emphasis mine)
As M noted in her blog, this is what we--parents like M, and me, and perhaps you, reader--are up against. These voices are everywhere, spoken from television screen and screaming from magazine cover and advertisement and even whispered by our own neighbors ("Mom, why does their lawn look nicer than ours? Why can't we drive a car like that?") Touching on this idea of how values permeate our daily living, Reverend Michael quotes theologian Debra Brazzel. In speaking about "'the casual decisions that we make which over time give expression to our values and shape the character of our lives,'” Brazzel says:
What kind of relationships we have; how we spend our time; what kind of work we do; how we spend our money; …how we get involved in our community; how we treat other people; what we keep and what we give away; how we worship; how we play. . .we are faced with choices about how we will live. And taken together, these decisions reflect who we are and the values we hold most dear. (Brazzel, as cited in Lowry, 2012)
M was on to something, wasn't she? When we make the decision to appreciate our bodies in all things, we are best able to "reflect. . .the values we hold most dear" (Brazzel, as cited in Lowry, 2012).
So how does this all tie in to PUSHing through life? I don't know about you, but I find all of those competing voices very distracting. They've been speaking to me since I was old enough to hear them, sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting. They were speaking to me before I was old enough (and wise enough) to see them as what they are: rustlers and thieves "only there to steal and kill and destroy" me (John 10:10, The Message). Just because I'm now savvy enough to recognize them (usually!) does not mean I've been able to erase 30+ years of the sway they've had over me. These voices distract me from the things--the good things, like nature walks--I want to do.
The answer for me, once again, comes back to maintaining my spiritual center and I do this through prayer. I've also been making time, the past week or so, to do some form of meditation. I take to heart the old saying, "Prayer is when we talk to God; meditation is when we listen." I find I'm most centered and serene when I incorporate both practices into my life. Quiet meditation is very important because, as Reverend Michael notes in his "One True Voice" sermon:
It’s not that God isn’t loud enough for us to hear; rather it’s that we’ve become too loud to listen to God! Maybe this all comes down to getting out of the noise of our lives long enough that we might actually be able to pay attention to the presence of God and hear his voice. (Lowry, 2012)
The more I pray and meditate, the better I become at recognizing the gatekeeper's voice in the midst of life's noise. I'm able to become like the sheep in Jesus' parable: refusing to "follow a stranger's voice. . .because [I am not] used to the sound of it" (John 10:5, The Message). When I'm present, spiritually, and fleeing from those voices, I do a much better job of helping my daughters see themselves as "a reflection of all the beauty, all the joy,
all the awesomeness (and I DO mean AWE-someness) of the world" (M, 2012).
As my children grow I not only want them to discern God's voice in the midst of all the other voices in this world, but also to have that instinct I've lacked, that of the sheep who know to flee from the strangers' voices. The louder my actions reflect God's voice, the more strange and wrong those other voices (the school bully's, the advertiser's, the young friend already talking about calories) will seem to them.
References
Lowry, M. (2012, April 29). One True Voice [Web log comment]. Retrieved from
http://pastoralponderings.wordpress.com/
M. (2012, April 19). Poodle Head and other body image issues [Web log comment]. Retrieved from
http://nowletmetellyousomething.blogspot.com/
M. (2012, April 24). Poodle-Head, redux [Web log comment]. Retrieved from
http://nowletmetellyousomething.blogspot.com/
