Beauty

I read the article on the Dove Campaign for real beauty (why has this thing stuck around for so long...isnt social media supposed to be instantaneous) in urban today which talked about how unscientific it was to get above average looking women to critique their own features and from that derive that we are all overly harsh on ourselves. What if instead it had been below average women or women who wear alot of make up? Ok actually to be honest I think that all the response articles I've read to the campaign so far have been sort of dodgy, I always agree with a few points but then I disagree with majority of what else is being said.

Really I think that the message that we shouldn't overlook the beauty that is in us is a good message. Which brings me to the question what is this beauty?

without going into some horribly pretentious ki reminiscence, I think what the Dove Campaign hinted at was a thing we like to call surface beauty (because, after all the got the FBI dude to sketch out what the women LOOKED like) and also (and this is why all the response articles get confuzzled and messy) a deeper kind of inner beauty eg. eyes that "lit up" or a "warm smile" which suggests that the person is a nice person ON THE INSIDE.

so surface and below the surface.

And i think that was the point of the video- to remind us that when people look at us they try to see the person that you ARE rather than the person that you LOOK LIKE, so in a sense the two drawings were comparing surface beauty & surface+inner beauty. The women's faces didn't change, it was the beholder and the eye of the beholder and the perception and all the biases that come with that perception that changed.  so you see because we all judge beauty based on what we see- it depends if we are ABLE to see beyond the surface to see both inner and outer beauty.

Often, when we look at ourselves we see only the surface, but real beauty is beyond that. that's why it's impossible for me to say any of my friends aren't pretty because i know them- I know who they are and all that they are comes bubbling to the surface so that when i see them i see all of them. (hahahhaha like in avatar I SEE YOUUUUUUUU)

And yet, there is a danger in how the message that "inner beauty is true beauty" / "beauty comes from within" is widely accepted and very easy to swallow. Because people generally like to think that although the features they were born with are out of their control (save plastic surgery and certain medicines) they can also be considered beautiful by working solely on their character and personality, by becoming a "good & nice person".

I love the idea of inner beauty of course! I mean who doesn't want to be thought of a beautiful person! And I'm not saying that beauty doesn't come from within, I'm just pointing out a flaw with the idea of MAKING out insides more beautiful on our own strength. Because if the motivation for me wanting to make myself a more beautiful person is so that people will think me a beautiful person, then by default I cannot be a beautiful person. My motivation for working on my character, greed and covetousness for other people's approval, would already make me ugly even before I start looking "beautiful on the inside".

so you see you can't attain inner beauty by trying to BE BEAUTIFUL on the inside. much the same as you can't achieve surface beauty on your own without the help of a plastic surgeon.

We are all messed up people. And we can't save ourselves.

So when I think of striving to be a beautiful person, let me remind myself that it will only lead to more ugliness. Comparisons. Discontent. Self-righteous pats on the back. Delusions. And let me not strive at all, but submit to the hand of the surgeon who I trust to change and transform me to the most beautiful person there is - Christ.

Because the beauty that is in us, the only beauty that we shouldn't overlook, is Christ working in our lives, whether we know it or not.