A Different Perspective - Moving My Art Around

A Different Perspective - Moving My Art Around

The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within—strength, courage, dignity. —Ruby Dee

SOME PEOPLE rearrange their furniture. Steve and I rearrange our art. Moving the pieces around from room to room helps us determine where each looks its most glorious, and we enjoy viewing the art from a new perspective. I think when it comes to our perspective on aging, we could all consider rearranging our opinions and priorities.

This morning I found three, count ’em three, significant lip wrinkles—I call these my Mother Puckers (I think they are the result of all the kissing I did on my babies). But these little devils were not a welcome sight. I gasped right out loud . . . and then laughed at myself. This represents a new life stage for me—one where I know that my physical youth and attractiveness have left the building just as my inward beauty begins to mature and evolve. For me, it means I need to move my art to another room—from my face to my heart. But to do this I will need a different perspective when it comes to beauty. Maybe you do too.

We will need to view beauty as something that has nothing to do with the reflection in the mirror but has everything to do with the reflection of our character, our mind, and our spirit. Rather than pine for a face without crevices, we will learn to take pride in the fact that we have become women of substance; women focused far more on the condition of the world than on the crow’s-feet that extend into our hairline. Rather than long for the muscle tone of our twenties, we will delight in our hard-won grace, dignity, and confidence as we walk into a room filled with strangers. Rather than compare our aging process and progress to that of our girlfriends, we will instead focus on the legacy of joy, inspiration, and adventure that we will individually and collectively leave to every little girl and young woman whose lives we touch.

Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last;but a woman who fears the LORD will be greatly praised. (Proverbs 31:30)

Girlfriends—if we want to—we could be the generation of women that moves our culture away from this obsession with beauty. We could be the generation of women our granddaughters talk about one day—the one that taught them and lived for them the art of being beautiful.