Contagious

I can't speak for everyone, but as a girl, I seriously still struggle with my body and feeling free and beautiful and confident or classically sexy in my own skin. I should say woman, but I still feel like I'm just a girl. Though, actually, I am a woman. I'm 30 now after all. You'd think that after so many years I would have developed a deeper sense of security in who I am and how I look. But no, here I am, still battling with the person I see in the mirror. Over-analysing, judging harshly and unfairly. What does that mean for our little girls and teenage beauties? How are they handling their thoughts towards themselves? How can we as women lead the way if we're no better than they are at this whole "happy with how I look" thing. 

You can be in a wonderful, beautiful place with so much to be thankful for, but if you feel ugly, it's like a grim shadow has blinded your eyes to reality and all you can see is everything you hate about yourself. And it shines through your posture and countenance and face expression and yes even your heart.

When you feel ugly, you feel like a nobody, you feel dirty and unwanted. You battle between wishing you were invisible and hoping someone would finally see the real you. People might be surprised to read all this, because majority of the time, if anyone says anything to me it goes along the lines of "you're so pretty", "you don't need to watch what you eat, you're so skinny." By the way, I hate it when people say that. 

As if being skinny is the be all and end all of beauty. And no I can't eat anything I want to, I am slim because of what I choose to eat and what I choose not to eat. I eat what I eat because I want to be healthy, but since I am tall, have a small frame and bone structure, when I eat well I look "skinny".

Most of the time I still feel like an awkward adolescent unsure of what to do with my hands. 

But I'm heading into that stage in life, where I want to be an example and conquer this insecurity thing before I might have a daughter some day, and before my niece and my goddaughter grow up and start looking in the mirror and looking at the girls on tv and looking at their friends in school and observing how the world responds differently to the pretty girls. 

Speaking from experience, I think it's important that we not only compliment our daughters on their appearance. It's surprising how insecure and jealous you become, when all you hear your whole life is how pretty you are. You start to feel like there's nothing else people are interested in but your looks. And when you gain weight or you have no friends or you haven't been told you're pretty in a while, well, very quickly you start the self hate talk. Because, your whole life you believed you were a nobody unless somebody thought you were attractive. You started to strive to be seen as physically beautiful, you hungered for it, you chased after it, you began to use it as your weapon. But you never felt fulfilled, you were never pretty enough. You still aren't. There's always someone else who looks better than you. Then you realise that, one day, you will lose this face and this body, so who will care to know me then? 

Don't waste your youth chasing after beauty or physical approval. The most beautiful women aren't the hairless ones with the perfect clear skin, the toned legs, flat tummy, big dreamy eyes, or full lucious hair. 

The most beautiful people, are the ones who search for the truth in others, who have overcome pain and hardship and now carry God's grace in their smiles and His love like a favourite everyday outfit. Forgiving, understanding, and encouraging, always. And laughter of course, brings the best out in others. 

True beauty is contagious. It's like love. It's not jealous or boastful. 

Let's encourage our daughters with confidence and acceptance beyond their physical image. Let's teach our girls and boys that beautiful isn't defined through perfection or the people we see on our screens. Let's show them what true beauty is through God's love and acceptance towards us. But let's be real. Don't stop saying, "you're beautiful." Just don't stop there either. 

“If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.”

1 Corinthians 13:3-7 MSG

 

Robcast: Good vs Perfect

I tried to type out most of one of Rob Bell's podcast episodes. There was a lot of pause, rewind, type, play, repeat. But I thought it was really beautiful and potentially life changing: 

//Good vs. Perfect//

Death and birth are natural, organic processes through which new life comes into the world. 

The sun rises and sun also sets. There is light and then darkness, God says that it is good. Tov (Hebrew for good).

Death and birth.

Burying in the earth and then rising in the earth.

Seasons with a gradual planting and harvesting and explosion of life, followed by a gradual tapering off into a death and a stillness and a winter hibernation, to be usurped, essentially, by a new spring. Seasons are good. It's good. The Hebrews gave us this idea of an affirmation of life in all of its death and rebirthness, in all of its darkness and light. In all of its seasons that come and go. It's cold and then it's warm. 

Tov (good). Good is sweaty and dirty and dark and light and death and birth and It's sexy and it's wine and it's food and it's friends. Tov is of the earth. Tov isn't interested in nice, neat, right angles. Tov isn't really interested in everything being spotless, and shining and polished and glossed. Tov is about life in all of its bristling authenticity. 

Hebrews gave us good, tov. But the Greeks (essentially) gave us this idea of perfect, the ideal... A perfection and ideal that can never be reached. 

Tov has a dynamic built into it that life, the universe itself, the planet, you, are in the endless process of becoming. There is a movement, a motion, a flow to good. Things are one day a certain way, but tomorrow they will not be the same way. That tree will keep growing, it will keep producing. That person will be moving forward or they will be moving backwards. That person will be growing and maturing and flourishing or they won't. 

Life. 

Think about the food you bring home from the supermarket. The more life it has the fresher it is. The closer it is from the source from which it came the shorter it's period within which it can give you life before it begins to go stale. The worst food for you, like a twinkie, you can leave in the cupboard for a year and nothing's going to happen to them. They're static, they're frozen. But life is changing, it's morphing, it's becoming. You are becoming somebody. Your energies and direction and trajectory and arc of your life are headed in a direction. The idea that we're static, frozen people simply isn't true because the universe itself is in the endless process of becoming. Often times what happens with perfection, perfect, is that it gives us a static view of the universe. You just are, you just arrive. How many people had a goal that they were like, "when I reach that goal everything will be perfect". Then you reach the goal and there was this profound let down. You found yourself even bored. Because life is this dynamic reality that demands that we engage upon it. Sometimes perfection, or perfect, comes with these categories. Basically perfect is that which cannot be improved. The moment there is nothing more to do, something within us is like "ughhh." it loses its vitality and heart. So in some ways good and perfect could be seen as a static unchanging fixed view vs a dynamic, flowing, becoming view of the world. 

Good is going somewhere. It's sweaty, dirty, sexy, wine and friends, it's stumbling down, it's falling flat on your face. For the world to actually be a world it actually has to be a world. For it not to be a simulation, for it not to be an intellectual exercise in the abstract. For the world to actually be a world, it has to be free to be a world. It has to be free to be bloody and dangerous, or it isn't a world. Do you see why this is so important? You have to be able to make a mess of things. If you don't have the kind of power that can really make a mess of things, then how can we ever have the kind of power and freedom and choice to make something really beautiful? For the world to be a world it actually has to be free to be a world. And for us to be people, we actually have to be free to be people. For us to be human, we actually have to be free to be human. We have to have enough power and choice and will to make a complete mess of things. Which means we have enough power and will and choice to make a new kind of world, a better kind of world. Something beautiful. You as a human being, it's not about you running from that power, from shrinking from it and avoiding it. Which by the way, is most of the comments on YouTube. All that Internet hate and all those people who seem to have tremendous energy to shred what other people are doing when they don't seem to be doing anything themselves, that's what happens when you shrink and run from the power that you have. As long as I'm pointing at the flaws of what somebody else is doing and making then I don't have to deal with how I have been shrinking and running and avoiding my own power to do something in the world. People shrink and avoid that power because it's painful and bloody and frustrating. 

So we're here, and we're human beings and we get to work in harmony with it. Taming it, moving in sync with it, finding its groove. The problem with perfect, is when you have this ideal in your head of perfection, as often times perfect tries it and if it doesn't immediately work out, perfect bails. Perfect is totally flummoxed. You had this thing in your head, you tried it, immediately it didn't go how it was supposed to go or how you thought it was supposed to go, or whatever the ideal was announced to you. And so we just quit. I tried, but it wasn't awesome so I quit. 

But tov (good) understands that everything is in the process of becoming and things take time. Everything in your life that matters takes time. And it takes intention and it takes energy. And you wrestle with it and you dance with it. And It knocks you down, but you get back up. See, it's all part of it when you're seeing life through the tov (good) lense. The eb and the flow and the seasons and the struggle. It's all part of what makes the world a world and it's all part of what makes you a human. It's all part of what makes you, you!

Think about a sculptor working with clay. It's about the fingers digging into the clay and moving it around, and trying this, and that didn't work so you go over here and try this and then you try that way, and then maybe you add a little water, then you turn it around and maybe look at it from a different direction. It's working with it. And all of the miss cues, all of the things you tried that didn't work are all part of it. 

Good is ok with flaws. Good celebrates all those roads you went down that you found out were a cul-de-sac. Good celebrates all the miss turns as part of it. Perfect often doesn't know what to do with our humanity. Perfect endlessly flogs itself for its imperfections. For all the ways that it sees itself falling short of the ideal. But good sees that it's all part of the bloody, difficult, strange, exotic, beautiful, mysterious thing that we know to be life. 

Quick tangent on afterlife, somebody asked ,"can't we just skip through all of the difficulty of this life and the not knowing and get to the part where we die and then we know everything?" 

No! No, we can't. Here's why: first off, where did you get the idea that when we die we'll know everything? Do you realise that the not knowing, the wonder and the mystery and the search, exploration and the hunt, the discovery, that's where the life is. That's good. For many people, the vision they were taught was essentially a very Greek afterlife. You're down here, sort of screwing it all up and then someday you die and then everything will be perfect. Perfect?? You mean that which cannot be improved upon. You mean that which is static and unchanging? In other words, that which is so boring you just want to die? 

You don't want perfect, trust me. You want good. You want process, becoming, exploration, learning. You love this sense, that you don't know what today will bring. Your moments of greatest joy are when you actually have a sense of anticipation. Where's this going to go? It's that sense of "I don't exactly know what's going to come, but I know it's going to be good." Let's disabuse ourselves of these ideas that somehow the goal is to get everything set and perfect, that which cannot be improved upon. That is the recipe for boredom. There are elements of excellence, of perfection, that are healthy and beautiful, but I'm talking about the unhealthy side. 

Now let's talk about the voices in our head. "Why can't you get everything right the first time" "why can't you be like so and so? They just skate, they float, they glide. They just make one good decision after another." 

It's a voice in your head that tells you, "you should nail this on the first try." Anything that is perfection out of the gate, means there's something wrong with you. 

Everybody, is at some level, stumbling through it. Everybody is doing the best with what they got. 

See, tov is good, it's about direction. It's about where you're headed, it's about your heart. Tov (good) had room for the flaws, for the missteps, because it's all part of it. The power of tov, and the power of Genesis ch. 1  is the light and the darkness both belong. The death and the burial and that new fresh seedling rising up out of the earth all belong. The season ending and a new season beginning; summer leading into fall, leading into winter when everything is dead, and then the explosion of new life in spring is all part of it. 

Do you have a static, fixed view of the universe? A perfection based view of the universe, where everything is the way it is, you get it nailed and then it stays exactly like that forever. That is not reflective of the world we live in. 

Tov acknowledges that there is a pain  when one thing ends and another thing begins, when one thing runs its course and then another thing starts. There is a pain of winter. Ever felt like it's like winter and a bunch of things died, and it's cold and lonely? Tov (good) has room for that. And God said, "it's good." It's all part of it. 

I wish somebody would have told me this, I wish somebody would have said, "all of the ways you're going to fall flat on your face, all of the regrets, all the shame, all the humiliation, all the embarrassment, it's all part of you becoming you." So just stop taking it so hard on yourself, stop beating yourself up, stop flogging yourself for the end of seasons, beginnings of seasons, for all the wrong turns. It's all good. 

Birth, man it's not perfect, but it's good. Cause it's all good. It all belongs. That's not a cliche for a tshirt it is a truth about how the whole thing works.

I wish somebody would have said to me years ago, "What's the Bible? Oh yeh, the Bible is this fascinating story that begins with the affirmation of life in all of its bloody imperfections. It begins with this resounding, joyful, embrace of all the messiness of life. All the times when seasons end, all the winters, all the changing of the tides, all the terror and drama and fragility of birth, all of those moments when you feel buried in the dirt and it turns out later that it was simply the burial for the resurrection."

Some translations in English say that Jesus said to be perfect. That word in the Greek means to be more whole and mature. So when some translators say that Jesus said to be perfect, I think he's saying to be whole, be mature. Pursue your health and wholeness. Line yourself up with the Divine and how the Divine moves through the world. So, for many people religion and even views of spirituality handed them a whole checklist of perfection that just had made them so miserable. Think of how many addictions, think of how many bad patterns come from "you're supposed to get it all right the first time." So here's the deal, you don't have to get it right the first time. What you do in Tov is you simply learn. You fall flat on your face, you get up and then you ask yourself a bunch of questions about what you can learn, cause you're discovering. Thank God you don't know it all, that'd be so boring! 

Good vs perfect? Welcome to Good. 

Others?

What is success? What defines a successful life? Is it money? Is it physical beauty? Is it our belongings? Is it our status in the hierarchy of fame and power? Is it determined by who we know? Is it happiness? Is it having a close relationship with your family? Is it enjoying what you do for work? Is it knowing that you are not defined by what you do? Is it still loving your husband or wife after several years together? Is it achieving your life's goals?

Since we have allowed social media to basically take over our lives, it feels like the issue of comparison has gone through the roof. There's no more ceiling, its just an endless 'knocking on the head' of reminders that others have it better, others have more, others are happier, others are prettier, others have it together, others are more successful. Others. It's all about the others, but not in the way it should be. This way of obsessing about other people, sadly reflects how selfish we are becoming. All we really care about, is me. Seriously. This is the extreme opposite of being selfless, when everything inside of me is about you and them and everyone. 

I find myself hypocritically divided between loving and hating social media. Though it has potential to connect and make the world smaller, somehow it has ended up dividing people, creating the Gulf of Emptiness. It gives the impression of community and wears the dress of popularity, but it hides the truth of everyday reality and diminishes the importance of investing in deepening relationships that really truly matter. Though it can be used to develop great opportunities and even initiate friendships, tragically, it seems to have dug up and worsened our dirty little insecurities. These lies are now great headlines running across our minds. Our eyes are constantly looking up to see the latest news flash of personal doubt and lack. Our hearts are endlessly 'refreshing' our need of approval. 

Bombarded with images that suddenly become our desires and define our dreams.

I never knew I needed all these things.

I never knew I should think these things.

I never knew I should feel this way.

I never knew I should believe that.

Suddenly, everyone's opinion has become my own. 

We are losing our souls to this slide-show world of "highlights".

We start to falsely believe that we actually know all these amazing people and that we are part of their lives somehow. Surely they must notice our likes and read our comments. Even amongst all the hundreds of others, mine must definitely stand out?! But even if they don't, we desperately long for them to. 

Our desire to be known and noticed by distant strangers we admire, has become more important than our own lives and the real people in it. 

I long for a time when we used to sit around laughing and chatting, not rushing, but listening and learning from each other, keeping eye contact, accepting a friend's embrace, sharing a long meal, playing games by a fireplace, enjoying the silence together, watching a movie without interruptions from a buzzing message, having a conversation without distractions of a lit up screen. The warmth of reality. The simplicity that once was.

Our minds are scattered.

We cannot be in a crowded room with someone, without scanning back and forth, back and forth and then again back and forth, back and forth. Constantly looking away, only to remind ourselves to return back to the moment and stay focused. Engage. Be vulnerable. Be real. Although, it shouldn't be something we need reminding of, it should be our natural instinct. But we just don't want to miss anything thats going on out there. And we fear of what may come from a purposeful conversation. We despise the closeness that could remove a layer of armour and weaken our shield against intimacy. Even though it is our loudest need.

A smile is one of the most beautiful trademarks of a person's face. It can draw you in and make you feel accepted, loved, seen, special. But sometimes our smiles hide what we really feel or mean. A smile should reflect truth. If we are using smiles to keep others at a distance, then we have misunderstood its purpose. If a smile is meant to draw in, why are we using smiles to keep people out (in reference to being in a crowded public place like a party or church)

"I smiled at you from a distance, there is no need to come over and converse. I smiled, you smiled, we held eye contact for a millimoment, quickly observed each other's outfit and acknowledged one another's existence, that is all that's necessary. Well hey, let's keep it civilised. Right? I don't want to end up being trapped in a real conversation. I've got places to go (the bathroom maybe), people to see 

(on instagram probably) and things to do (post a new photo). I don't have time for this nonsense. This so called 'get to know you' business." 

Of course, I'm only exaggerating. Not everyone is a slave to these issues. But honestly, many people are and sometimes, I am. Though there are many positive messages out there too, there are oh so many negative interpretations of well meant sharing of personal lives.

So what does it come down to? 

Is it healthy for me and for my sanity to always be reminding myself of what I don't have or of what I wish I looked like?

Is it good, to feel inadequate in my own skin this often in a day?  

  

Is it beneficial for my future, to believe the daily lies that I am lacking in talent?

What will our future look like, if we continue to listen to the fiction and strive to achieve a false perfect image of success? 

please like me #makeupfree

Perhaps you're thinking, how we respond to social media is our own individual business. If you feel ugly, boring or 

unsuccessful by looking at instagram, then it just highlights something that you need to work out. But don't be a hater just because you're insecure. 

Well. 

Maybe you're right. 

In fact, you probably are.

But, maybe, there's more to it then that. 

The truth is, I know that the complexity of jealousy and comparison will always be with us, with or without the internet. We may conquer a hurdle of self doubt one day, only to gear up again for the next one tomorrow. 

The underlying truth is that we all have a deep rooted need to be loved and liked for who ever we truly are. The only way to receive that kind of love, is to allow people into the "grit and grime" of our honest selves. To open our lives and welcome the possibility of pain, rejection and loss. 

For when we desperately lose our selves in truth, we find life. 

Search for truth and don't give up till it finds you. 

"For whoever wants to save their life, will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? (Matthew 16: 25-26)

Complacent War

Do you ever find yourself fighting to stay in the comfort zone. As if your life's mandate is to remain confined within walls and boundaries that you've known up close and personal. Confined being the key word. You start to feel agitated trying to hold on to a world you learnt to control, where you decided that happiness means peaceful, untempered, lifeless days. It's safe and familiar and predictable and comforting. Until it isn't. Until it's nerve wrecking, mind numbing, time wasting. The comfort zone is where you die slowly and completely off duty, and not in the usual ways of death. But more conivingly as it snatches away your dreams, your drive, your sense of adventure, your strength to stand for something bigger than yourself. Indifference is just a mask that evil wears in the comfort zone. Basically, it's when and where you stop caring. Giving up on really living in the moment. Even though you're still breathing physically, you're actually just going through the motions, but going nowhere. Your entire world begins to centre around yourself, still your heart bleeds for another fight, one more try. But you forgot how to care, so you just think about yourself. Every thought turned into comparison, bitterness, perhaps envy. It's self pitying, lonely too. You stay stuck in your own mind, drowning in thoughts that could kill anyone's Spirit. But the only recipient is you. This place you once sought comfort and determined to build your life upon, is also your greatest enemy's technique to steal, kill, and destroy. It can be as simple as, caring more about yourself and your own well being, than anyone else. Always. And you hate it. And it hates you. Yet, you remain engrossed in this exhausting cycle you still choose.

There are always many reasons, good excuses that are true. But deep down you know, you should make time for the things you care about, for what is truly important and pure. If only you could remember what they were. 

But then, Jesus always comes to the rescue, just like He promised to do. As God floods your mind with memories and Words that are His Truth. You're reminded of His care and of the great lengths He's gone to bring you here. His love, so magnetic, it draws you in and holds you painstakingly close. You acknowledge that He's never kept a distance, even when you blindly drifted on. He's always in the same place, right here wherever you left off. Closer even. 

Sometimes the very thing that is "your thing", that defines your purpose on our Earth, is the very thing that gets taken, if you're not careful about whose words to let in most. Humans were created to care, we were created to love, we were created to do more. Because Our God, the Uncreated One, made our blueprint to carry and reflect Himself through us. So when we live a life, that is barely a life at all, our Soul begins to starve and we'll take anything to fill the hole. Stuffing ourselves with little white lies of how passivity is the safest place to roam. Forgetting all the while, to seek the One whose name is engraved upon our hearts. The comfort zone, is anything but comfortable. Don't be a prisoner in your own complacent war. 

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV