Looking in the Mirror

The second of Frederick Buechner's Lenten questions is a bit of an odd one: "When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like, and what do you see in it that you most deplore?"

I guess the answer to the first question is smiley eyes. The answer to the second is, I suppose, my somewhat irregular nose (the product of years of thumb-sucking as a child). But to be honest, I don't spend very much time either looking in the mirror or worrying about what other people think when they look at me. I am too old and (blessedly) at peace with myself to bother. Apart from a regular skin care regime, what you see is what you get.

If I had been answering this question twenty years ago, I would have been obsessing about minor imperfections. These days, not so much. I am well aware that I am a little overweight, and that I could do with getting more exercise (and eating less chocolate) but I cannot bring myself to care that much. So long as my body does what I ask of her, and is not in pain, all is well. I am so thankful that she is healthy.

I am me - a "unique, precious, child of God" to quote the Quakers, wife of 42+ years in a strong and happy marriage, mother of two wonderful grown-up children, and Nannie to three gorgeous boys. I am also a Unitarian minister and a published author, a crocheter and a stitcher. Yesterday was my 66th birthday. I retired from employment as District Minister of the Midland Unitarian Association, and the future stretches out in front of me.  In comparison to all that glory and good fortune, what do my looks matter?

Moment of Liberation

Like most women of my age, I believe I could "do with losing a few pounds", so I watch what I eat and keep a close eye on my weight. And the slimming industry thrives by feeding our insecurities, backed by the cult of celebrity, which fills the magazines and television screens with images of slim (OK, skinny) celebrities with their air-brushed-perfect faces and bodies, back in their skinny jeans weeks after giving birth.



Today I was reading one of the 'before and after' stories in the slimming magazine I had bought that morning, and was brought up standing by the following statement: "It's amazing how your body changes. My waist has gone down from 45in to 30in, my bust has reduced from 46in to 36in and my hips are down from 47in to 34in." The lady concerned was understandably pleased about this, and was looking fantastic in her 'after' photo, but my reaction was rather different, as my vital statistics are slightly smaller than hers. I thought "My God; I'm an 'after'! What on earth am I worrying about?" My BMI is at the top end of normal, and I've been the same weight, plus or minus a couple of pounds, for at least the last decade.

It was a real moment of liberation. I finally realised that I have been suckered in to years of obsessive worrying by popular culture. I suppose that on the good side, it has made me eat more or less healthily, but what a waste of emotional energy!

Gok Wan has it right - all body shapes and sizes have their own beauty, and it is about time that women like me set ourselves free from the obsession with chasing after some externally-imposed standard of "the perfect body" and started to appreciate the wonderful, marvellous, intricate bodies that we have, that walk, stand, sit, lie, reach out in longing, caress, and generally do what we want them to do.

Every woman's (and every man's) body is a gift from God, and a home for our souls. if we must have an obsession, let it be about learning to be at home in them, and looking after them, treating them with the respect they deserve, by eating and drinking good stuff, and by doing sufficient exercise to keep them fit and healthy.

Ourselves As Others See Us

Last night we were watching the very funny and talented comedian, Michael McIntyre on TV. He was performing to an audience in Wembley, and spent the whole time pacing up and down, up and down - apparently it is his trademark style. And I found it so distracting - I found it was much easier to appreciate the jokes if I didn't look at the TV. My daughter does the same thing sometimes - prowls around the room when she's talking to me. And it drives me nuts! I think it's because I was taught that it is polite to focus on a person's face when they are talking to you, and the prowling / pacing makes this very difficult, and hence uneasy for me.

And then of course I realised that I too probably have mannerisms which annoy / distract other people, which I'm not aware of because I can't see myself. There is a lovely quote in C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters which illustrates this perfectly:

"When two humans have lived together for many years, it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy - if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbability of the assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, this is easily managed."

It is so easy to make judgements about people for superficial reasons like this. And so very wrong. I need to remember, to constantly have in mind, that "each one of us is unique, precious, a child of God" and should not be judged, but seen whole, and loved just the way they are. This is the heart of compassion.

Moderation and Mindfulness

"Try to live simply. A simple lifestyle, freely chosen is a source of strength."

In recent days, I have been reflecting on these short sentences from the Quaker Advices and Queries. In the nearly three months that have passed since I became an ex-smoker (you are never a non-smoker; it is like being an alcoholic - one will always be too many) I have been fairly indulgent about what I have eaten and drunk telling myself that I "deserve" this cake or that glass of wine, "as a reward". As a result of this, I have put on a few pounds, and have now reached the stage where all my clothes are feeling somewhat snugger than I would like. And as I cannot afford a new wardrobe, I have decided to say "Stop" and go on (yet another) diet.

Looking back over the twenty years since my son was born, I have been on many diets, always to lose the same 7-14 pounds. At the moment, to my secret horror, I weigh the same as I did when I was six months' pregnant (although I don't look it). I would just like to get back under 9 stone, which would be a healthy weight for my height. But because I "only" need to lose 10 or 12 pounds, and because most of my clothes still fit (more or less) I have been quietly sabotaging myself. I have realised that I am usually fine during the day, when I am busy, but that it is when sit down in the evening that I "reward" myself for being good all day by eating and drinking all the wrong things - wine, chocolate, crisps. So I need to make better choices.

So I am going to try to consciously and mindfully adopt a more "simple lifestyle, freely chosen" and make healthy eating and drinking choices for six days out of every seven. Then, on the seventh, I am going to enjoy some red wine and chocolate or even a curry to prove that I can eat "what I like" without going hog-wild, and without sabotaging myself.

It may sound odd to relate this resolution to religion or spirituality, but I do feel as though I have been gently nudged in the right direction by Someone. Perhaps that is what being mindful means - attending to the sacred in everyday life, however mundane it may seem.

Thank God for Gok!

In these enlightened times, it is no longer acceptable to be racist, or sexist, or to discriminate against another person on account of their age or disability. This is not to say that prejudice about these things has died out, but it is not acceptable.

But there is one last bastion of prejudice which is alive and well - it seems to be quite acceptable to be sizist, or fattist, in other words, to judge someone by how much (or little) they weigh. It is commonly recognised that first impressions are important, and that, rightly or wrongly, most people do judge others by appearances. And it is endemic in our celebrity-obsessed society.

I've watched three programmes this week, all of which give different angles on this issue. The first was America's Next Top Model, a reality show in which a group of girls in their late teens or early twenties learn the skills of modelling (and there is a lot more to it than meets the eye) and are eliminated one by one, until the winner is awarded the title of America's Next Top Model. The current series is Cycle 15. The show has spawned many franchised imitations, the world over. Most of the girls are very slim, if not downright thin, and there have been incidents of girls passing out because they are not looking after themselves properly (i.e. eating and drinking enough to keep body and soul together).

To be fair to Tyra Banks, the originator and chief judge of the series, she is very concerned to teach the girls about the need to look after themselves. Indeed, at the beginning of the current series, one girl was sent home for being too thin, as the judges (quite rightly) thought that this didn't send the right message about healthy eating to the show's legion fans, many of whom are young girls themselves.

At the other end of the scale was Biggest Loser USA, another reality show in which a number of morbidly-obese contestants are taken out of their everyday lives, and taught to eat healthily and subjected to a ferocious exercise regime under the supervision of two excellent, but very demanding coaches. The amount some of these people weigh at the beginning of the series is phenomenal (one guy weighed over 500 pounds or 35 stones) and their rate of weight loss is similarly phenomenal - the same man has currently lost 129 pounds in nine weeks! But it's all done under medical supervision, and the contestants' lives are transformed by the process.

These are just two of the many reality shows on TV which are centred around physical appearance, the desirability of fitting in to some "ideal". Others include shows like 10 Years Younger, in which a woman (it is usually a woman) has her appearance transformed by a combination of cosmetic surgery, dentistry, makeover (hair and make-up) and dress. At the beginning of the show, 100 passers-by are asked her age, and the average is taken, and then again at the end, after the transformation.

We seem to be obsessed by physical appearance. It is not just TV shows, it is also endemic in magazines, worst of which are the "celebrity" ones such as OK, Closer and Hello, which seem to exist to show us endless pictures of A-Z list celebrities either at their air-brushed best (or more interestingly still to many readers) at their worst. The appetite for such things appears to be bottomless.

As a Unitarian, I firmly believe that there is "that of God in everyone", a divine spark that makes each person unique and worthy of respect as a human being, regardless of age, sex or personal appearance.

Which is why I thank God for crusaders such as Trinny and Susannah, hosts of What Not To Wear, and Gok Wan, host of How To Look Good Naked (the third programme I watched this week), who have quite a different message about physical appearance. While granting that physical appearance (looking your best) is important, the whole rationale behind What Not To Wear was to enable women (and men) to learn about their body shapes, and about what colours and clothes styles suit them best, to enable them to "make the best" of what they've got, and to be happy with themselves. Gok Wan has gone even further down this road, preaching a message that all women are beautiful, no matter what their shape, size or complexion.

It is a vitally important message, particularly for younger girls. It has taken me many years to be content with my weight - I started to obsess about it in my teens, and it was only through watching Trinny & Susannah, and reading their books, that I have learned how to dress appropriately for my body shape, to make the best of my assets, and to be content.

So Thank God for Trinny & Susannah, and for Gok, and for all people who can help insecure women who believe all the media hype about physical perfection, to be happy with the bodies they've got and concentrate on more important things.