beautiful

I've been thinking about beauty a lot lately. 

I just got People magazine's Most Beautiful In The World edition.  Lots of pretty there.  We just watched the season finale of Hawaii 5.0.  Lots of pretty there.  :)

And I've been planning for our 25th high school alumni weekend in Maryland.  If there is ever a time to look your best, it's alumni.  With all your old friends who knew you when you were all youthful, cute and fresh.  So hair has been cut and highlighted, clothes have been bought, nails have been done.  I even signed up for a half marathon in mid May, so by alumni I would be hard into my training.  Tight muscles and many, many calories burned.

Then April arrived and brought with it HIGH pollen counts and off-the-chart allergy levels. My immune system went into "full, exaggerated response mode."  Fresh air and an elevated heart rate became my worst enemies.  My new look is bloodshot eyes, red and cracked nose, a puffy face and starting-to-atrophy muscles. 

I made it through Friday night and Saturday morning of alumni.  Wore my new clothes, saw my old friends.  But by Saturday afternoon I was curled up in our friend's guest room with a box of kleenex and a cold washcloth over my face.  In between my sneezing and nose blowing, I could hear our friends laughing and talking upstairs.

The last straw was a text from my friend Barbara, five states away, commenting on an alumni picture.  "You are looking beautiful right now!  Love the new top."  I rushed to facebook to find a number of pictures posted from that morning.  It was worse than I thought.  Much worse.  Bad angles, bad lighting, and most of all, a bad dose of reality.  I picked the pictures apart, found all the unfavorable comparisons and plotted my move to a distant land.  Then I put the wet washcloth over my red, runny nose and curled up again.  Not so pretty....

After a while, in that dark room, I had to get strict with myself.  Allergy season will pass.  It always does.  My cracked nose will heal.  I can start exercising again.  Those things will help.  In the meantime I do have control over some truly unattractive facets in my being - like envy, jealousy, resentment, anger, self pity.... I identified these little monsters and released them out into the pollen filled yard.

I thought about people I know and love whose inner beauty shines so brightly.  I remembered how much I want to be filled with the qualities of grace, gratitude and generosity.  I practiced them right there in the dark room.

And I thought about how "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  I am so blessed to have friends who see the same pictures I am so critical of and find something lovely in them. 

That night I read this inspiring prayer from Seven Sacred Pauses.  It takes the focus off me.  It elevates beauty to so much more than a magazine cover or outfit.  It draws me to a better place.

O You whose face is a thousand colors...look upon us in this twilight hour, and color our faces with the radiance of your love.  As the light of the sun fades away, light the lamps of our hearts that we may see one another more clearly.  Let the incense of our gratitude rise as our hearts become full of music and song.  May the work  that we bring with us into this hour fall away from our minds as we enter into the mystical grace of the evening hour.  Amen.