Fire

Why are we so selfish as to deny someone the freedom to love? Why can we not even think that it could be an option? Why can I love those who do not give that freedom to others!
Why is the world in a place of oppression?
Why do people have to turn to drugs and sex and self mutilation to escape the pain that people LIKE US bring them into?
Why do we think we are right over all? That we are good over all? That we are superior?
Awhile back, I blogged about perfection, and how our society has defined perfection in some myth called 'normal'. This white heterosexual English speaking (with no accent) thin good looking person with a good education, a good paycheck, and a perfect nuclear family to go home to.
If we embrace diversity so, why can't we let people be diverse!
This world is diverse. There are so many people on this earth that if we were all white heterosexual English speaking thin good looking people with good education, paycheck and perfect nuclear family, then we'd all be clones!
God did not create us to be the same. He gave us free will instead. What a gift! God created me to be unique, to wear bunny freaking slippers around campus, to make weird facial expressions, and to love uninhibited.
I do not feel oppression for these things. No one judges me for my personality or my attire. I must fit somewhere into the Judeo Christian normal continuum.
Somewhere along the way, though, humans decided that difference is bad. That we can and should condemn those who do not fit into the blueprint that we have created. And we have hated them, or do not associate with them. We destroy their happiness by locking them within their very selves and cause them to assimilate into our heterosexual society.
Do you think Jesus condemned homosexuals? Jesus condemned hippocrites. What are we?
Jesus dined with sinners. He befriended them. How can we be Jesus to anyone if we avoid them?
I don't want to be angry and anyone in particular.
I think I'm angry the most at myself because I have been silent for so long. So many times I have heard the jokes and said nothing. I've laughed at the jokes. I've read the words out of context and judged.
I don't care if I am not theologically correct.
God does not condemn those he loves because they are the way that He created them!
God.
I've been clamping my jaw together for an hour because I can't put words to my anger. I don't want to put faces to my anger because it will be anger sorely directed. I want to support, and empower. I want to educate and open people's eyes, but I AM ONLY ONE PERSON.
I am not GOD.
I cannot change people's minds.
I cannot help them see the light.
I'm so frustrated in my helplessness to solve this problem.
I feel like the more words I say the more close minded people will become.
God.
The adrenaline that is rushing through my body has given me the hunger to seek justice. I see the injustice. How can I make justice? I feel hopeless.
I know I'm here for a reason. I know I"m in the right place because I have felt this emotion.
I need to scream and cry and throw things. I don't want to break things.
I desire to feel peace with what is going on in my mind, but at the same time, I know that feeling will not give me the drive to say what I need to say.
I need to pray.
The Holy Spirit is more than enough to speak through me. Or speak through my actions.
I was in a place of comfort, and I have been approached with this discomfort. It's digging through my skin and rubbing alcohol on it. I have this burning, itching desire to help, to support, to be real. To provide a place where real can be a reality for those who need it.
I feel sick and disgusted with the world.
And there is no one to pacify this. We shouldn't be pacified.

Stop being an onlooker.

How can we be silent?

Feminism and BeautyinGrace

Grace and Katherine, the beautiful feminists

Why feminism?

On Monday, I was sitting in Common Grounds with two couch-fulls of lovely ladies, and my friend Katherine, already declared, asked me if I was a feminist, and Mila also shared her tastefulness in the topic.

I gave quite the hesitation--I'm scared of stigma--then said, "Well, maybe."

Given looks of astonishment, I gave in, "Okay, yes, I am! I just don't like the stigma."

I then went on later to say, "You know, I think my dad is a feminist," because he's always been all about my sisters and I taking on whatever came our way.

The funny part is that I went on declaring it for the rest of the day, to anyone who I spoke to about political issues, or just in conversation with Bekah and Meg, later in the day.

Feminism and Beauty:

I think it's important to establish the connection between feminism and beauty. Feminism, with one of the ideas being to give women their rights, also asks for the right of women to define their own beauty. Thus, it is very important for me to define myself as a feminist. I declare that women's beauty is unique, not what oppressive media (and some men) make it to be, and that it doesn't need someone else to say anything for it to be beautiful. If the wind blows in the forest, but no one hears it, did it move through the forest?

Of course. Part of women being beautiful is that almost nothing needs to be said. Beauty exists in the existence of feminism, in the ideals, the attitudes, the confidence, and all of these aspects are beauty. Someone could be blind and deaf and still be completely beautiful, though no one would ever clarify it for them, as long as they believed it, it would be true. 

This comes to my own unique beauty. It's very important that I declare myself to be a feminist (partially because people already assumed it was so), and also because it declares that I am more radical than the beauty that society tries to claim of me. 

Today was a day to do gracebeauty, not societybeauty. So Grace brightened her eyes, braided her hair in a circle, and wore bunny slippers to class, even though it rained. 

Goal today: go run, because it makes me feel so much better than a compliment from a guy telling me that I'm completely beautiful. Running brings out a confidence of capable dreams, and endurance and possibilities. What's great is that today I also chose to wear sweats and a sports bra. And get my picture taken for the Shen (school yearbook). I care about my unique beauty that much. People who get that yearbook will remember me as the girl with the interesting slippers, the runner, the braided hair and the bright eyes. 

I am the Plant in the Room [Perfect (2)]

Grace + "Beauty"

Last year in the class Ruling Ideas, Dr. Judy Mullet talked about the connection between fundraising, and having a plant in the room. Studies show that if there is some sort of foilage in the room when one is trying to raise money for something, a person is likely to be more generous. In essence, the plant is the manipulator.

Today was the first day of experimence (experiment and experience). Life is an experimence in itself, if we choose to look at our experiences and let our observations be so. However, today became the first day of a drive to change society's beauty standards. Is it a transformation? Is it a decision to not waste time in front of a mirror? I've already done these things today. I've transformed myself into someone that the culture would think of as beautiful.

The idea was to answer anyone who asked, "What's the occasion?"
"I wanted men to notice me today."

[Of course, I was then asked that particular question by a professor, and I chickened out.]

But why don't we instead ask a different question? There's nothing wrong with wearing make up for no reason, [although if has become a habit, then perhaps the habit needs to be rethought.]

But why not ask a question every time someone exhibits the confidence that creates their unique beauty?
"What's making you so beautiful (or unique, or confident, or you) today?"

That was tangenial. (meaning: a tangent)

Today started out as sort of an experimence to see if I would be able to manipulate men to notice my beauty by way of curlies and eye shadow. It makes me feel bad. I don't want people to think that I was doing it for attention. To a point I was, but it was also to make a point. Point: Make up and hair that's "done" do define "beauty". At least by the culture's standards. Or makeup and hair is synonymous with deserving a verbal response by those of the male species. By our culture's standards.

Can I redefine this beauty? I want to exhibit the beauty that I see all around me in each woman and man on this campus that is unique and shows an uninhibited beauty in each person.

I don't want beauty to make people rip themselves apart. I want people to look at themselves, see their own beauty, see their own gifts, and glue it all together, and let the cup of confidence and self-love overflow.

I'm starting this experimence with the opposite. And I'm going to transition from this society standard to the beauty that I feel I exhibit the most from myself.

"Watch" me as I go from externally motivated and extrinsic beauty to internal motivated and intrinsic beauty. [Watch is in quotations, because not all beauty is seen.]

How do you define your internal beauty?
What are society's standards that you feel required to navigate and why?

Perfect (1)

We think of things that we have that aren't perfect, making the world a negative trunk with occasional bump of positivity. We can paint this painting of perfection, but we cannot attain it. It is only something that we look upon and wish that we can be. In physical images, women reach for the perfection of beauty, a beauty designed by advertisements, Photoshop, and makeup. This drive for perfection pokes bones through skin, and causes fear and hate. It creates a dread to stare at the image that is created in a reflection, it creates criticism of every cell that defaces the smoothness of perfect. It creates 'ugly.'
I just want to grab this beauty and wring it's neck. Just as perfect love should cast out fear, perfect beauty should cast out ugly. There is nothing that makes this image rotten. Instead of looking in the mirror and seeing all that is imperfect, don't look for imperfection. Look at perfection. Look at what already exists. God created each of us perfect in His image. That image is unique in each of us. God shines differently in each of us. He's so diverse, he would create people big and small, with slight facial features, and sharp ones, with tiny eyes, with big ones. You are perfect. Accept that perfection. Accept that no one has the perfection that you have. If you try to be someone else, of course you are going to feel imperfect--you cannot become them. And if you try, you will continue to feel like you will never reach that point. Because you won't-- you can't.
I want you to remove the word ugly from your vocabulary. It is lethal for your health. Every time I say the word ugly, it connotates to not wanted, unloved, broken, useless. If we call our bodies ugly, we don't want them. We instead want someone else's, and we can't have theirs. If we want the ideal body, whose body are we stealing to replace ours?
What is 'ugly'?
Is 'ugly' not putting on makeup in the morning?
Is 'ugly' not having enough time to exercise?
Is 'ugly' feeling inadequate and incapable?
Whatever ugly means to you, whether it's a weakness or a feeling of failure in a reflection, free that feeling. Put it out in the open. Then, do the unthinkable. Take that ugly thing, and call it beautiful. Not the beauty that society creates. That beauty doesn't exist anymore. It has no substance. Though the media surrounds you, it is NOT you. You cannot become the media. You cannot be created by the media. You create yourself. And what you create of yourself is beautiful. Every part that is unique, and worth something. It is part of the whole of you. It is loved by God and should be loved by you. You need it and you want it. Your body is what your body is.
What's to make better when there's nothing wrong with you?
Perfection is looking at your reflection and realizing that you aren't being deceived by society's lies anymore.