I don't want to be taller

I don't own a pair of high heels. I did try to wear them for a bit back when I was doing my first degree, but after a few months of tottering about, I pulled them off my feet one frosty spring morning and walked barefoot back to my dorm room, never to embrace the style again.  Whenever I see women in heels (especially those spiky, skinny ones that are sure to get caught in a grate or sidewalk crack or street sewer cover), I wonder how they do it.  I know that some women claim that they can be comfortable, and fashion sense insists that heels make the female leg look great, but I am not convinced. I think my legs look great just as they are.  I don't need to be taller, either. I do need to be able to walk safely (and occasionally break into a run) without fear or fatigue. Silly me - I believe I can look good without 3-6 inches of scaffolding strapped to my foot.

Heels are not evil, don't get me wrong, but they speak to me of the not-so-subtle pressure out there to look or dress a certain way in order to be attractive. What it says most loudly to me is that we are not happy with who we are. We want to be taller, sexier, more shapely, have longer legs, blonder hair, flawless faces, longer lashes, redder lips, and bouncier hair. Where can I find a woman that is happy with who she is? And the age she is? Why do so many of us have 'downplaying our alleged figure faults' as the primary motivation when getting dressed? How many of us wear something because we feel fantastic in our bodies? I love looking good, but who decides what this "good" is?  I would not give that authority to the fashion industry - they are trying to sell us their goods and in order for them to do this, we have to feel we lack something.

In my opinion, a healthy and content person is beautiful.  They carry themselves with an air of confidence that needs no heels to bolster it. Love also makes people glow.  When my husband and my good friends tell me I am beautiful, I need to believe them.  They know the real me.  Yes, I usually wear make-up, colour my hair, and try to wear matching clothes, but there are times when I don't, and that's okay.  Some days the natural look is a refreshing change, and Dean would certainly agree with this.

I don't need to be taller - I need to stand taller, confident that God made something beautiful in me.
I don't need to be younger - I need to embrace the fullness of life I have now.
I don't need longer lashes - I need to see clearly the beauty all around me.
I don't need a flawless face - I need to smile at more people.
I don't need redder lips - I need words of kindness to grace my lips often.
I don't need longer legs - I need a willingness to walk in grace and goodness and humility.

In case you have not heard it yet today, "You look good!"

the photo: Dean and me at a wedding this past summer. No heels, but we both looked fine!

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go...

Esther's protest

I have been hesitant to write anything here pertaining to the student protests in Montreal, partly because I didn't believe I had any solutions to offer and partly because I just wanted to stay out of the controversial mess it has become. Besides, I have studying to do. But this weekend, something changed. I read the book of Esther. First, some background: the unrest started early in the year when a group of students decided to protest the tuition hikes proposed by the Quebec government ($325 a year for the next 5 years). Seeing that tuition rates have been frozen for almost ten years, it seemed reasonable to the government to increase them to reflect rising costs. This did not sit well with some students, and they organised an ongoing protest in which students were encouraged to boycott classes and refuse to hand in assignments. It has now grown into a movement which has staged several organise...

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun. I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading. One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others). Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding. Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity. In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007. “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’ C...

outWORD by Matte Downey

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