Perfect Flaws

Even as I write this I am at one of the world's most beautiful white sanded beaches. I am with just my husband for a week in a house built for 10. In this sanctuary, I was drawn to the bookcase and found In the Sanctuary of Women, written by Jan L Richardson. Yes. This is it. This is what we women need. We need not the threats to inner assurance from the next "Most Beautiful Woman." We need not the threats to our own confidence from those who steal the glances. We need not to be weighed and measured and then be found wanting. We women need the sanctuary of women. And, we too, need to be that sanctuary.

How many times, in an effort to encourage other women to keep the faith, or stay the course of personal validation of their very selves, have I said, "True, the opposing voices are many and louder, but there are voices speaking a different truth. They just aren't as easily heard." So, having gained from the wisdom of Dr. Seuss with Horton Hears a Who!, I shall keep adding my voice  just like Jojo's "Yopp," in order to grow the hearing of what matters for humanity ... and especially for womanity.

You see, again the promotion of perfection is plaguing me where I am. Perfection in the physical manifestation of womanity. And, I find that not only am I not impressed when that perfection is brought forward for us all to applaud, envy, and emulate, I am disgusted. And offended. Because the very moment that perfection is cracked, or wrinkled, or blemished, it is no longer of any value. And, so goes the message, is the person bearing that perfection.

All of us, even those born with something close to this perfection, will eventually or have already moved out of it. Beyond it and into a world of, what? Trash? Garbage? A world of discard? According to the message of this culture in which I live, yes.

However, this message is not according to the culture in which I live, this is according to me. And, according to me, just as it is the flaws in a diamond that make one different from the rest of the perfect ones, it is the "flaws" in each of us that set us apart. Make us matter in some way that matters. There are stories, and life experiences, and wisdom and understanding in many of the marks of "imperfection" we carry. For your enjoyment, however, let me add that I have a tray with 22 cosmetics that I apply virtually every day. But, I do that because it pleases me. I like it. It's fun. I am not afraid to be without those cosmetics, although my spider veins in my legs have been known to scare children, so in certain circumstances the make-up frees me to think on things other than hiding my legs from children. And make-up on my face lends a certain power with other people that doesn't seem to be generated without it. Oh. There's the rub.

Ladies, if we're not careful we'll be our own worst enemy. Every time we doubt our value, every time we doubt our beauty, every time we hide ourselves away under layers and layers of anything we apply to gain someone else's approval, we diminish the opportunity to be wholly ourselves. And we deny the world the opportunity to know that whole self. Women must lead the way as only women can. And I mean with a confident and gentle best, and the ease of grounded certainty.

Each generation must learn for themselves, and that to me is a sad truth. And so, we older women must be present, and gather round the young women to nurture that wholeness. This morning, even as I applied my own regimen of make-up, I recognized that I am friend to many women, young and old. I have what some would consider to be unusual friends, being the older white woman that I am. But what I know this morning is that this diverse assortment of woman can rest with me, as we ought to get to rest in this world in which we live. They can rest from expectations and self-perceived shortcomings. Women can rest with me as we ought to get to rest in the world in which we live. We don't easily have that luxury, though, so we must, we simply must, ladies and gentlemen, be and offer that rest to as many as we can.