White Woman Hair

I love volunteering in the kids classes at my church.  Class size varies, discipline issues vary, over all spirituality varies, but I can put up with all of that stuff if it lets me be with the kids.

On a recent Sunday morning, a fifth grade Latina girl came up to me unexpectedly and said:

"Ms. Rachel!  You have such beautiful hair!"

I looked into her beautiful brown eyes and thought to myself: do I really have beautiful hair?  Or have you be socialized to believe that blonde hair, blue eyes, white skin is beautiful?  Do you think you are beautiful? Why is being beautiful so important to us anyway?  I want you to know that you are more than just beautiful, but an intelligent, capable young woman worth so much more than how you look.

But of course, you cannot necessarily say that to a fifth grade girl, in church, in the middle of the memory verse game.

So, I told her thank you, and we went back to playing.

If I could go back again, I would have told her she was beautiful too.  Affirming her worth--even if I didn't agree with the source--is far more important than the sociological factors that make her need that.

I just had so many words jumbling around in my head that the right ones couldn't seem to squeak past my lips.

Even though I spent the rest of the morning looking for reasons to compliment her on how well she participated and telling her how beautiful she was, I'm not sure it really helped.

I was so disappointed in myself.

Paintings and Plastic Castles

Here I am, looking for God's plan for my life.  I ask yet again, what should I do?  What skills should I focus on and where should I apply them?  In which position will I most benefit the Lord?  

What relationships should I have?  Who should I really invest in?  How can I love people better?  When am I going to fall in love?  

How can I engage the world around me in a way that increases the divine mission on this earth?  

I feel somewhat like a chess piece.  An object waiting to be directed by the only one who can see the whole board. It sounds ideal, but who wants to be a piece of plastic, stuck moving in predefined patterns until we are put back on the shelf in the linen closet, or chewed up by the puppy who found us laying in the living room behind the couch.

Today, God showed me a new perspective.

We, the people in the world, are not little plastic pieces on a grid.

We are canvases of color specifically arranged in the grandest museum of all.

I am a spectacular canvas specifically created to be just as it is.  The Artist has used a masterful hand to create me.  Sometimes I grab my own paint brush and splatter on the canvas.  My unskilled self dabs and dots, scribbles and smears and makes a horribly botched mess of the whole thing.  Then, when I notice the storm clouds I have painted on Starry Night, I drop the brush and hang my head in shame.  

God, with loving, gentle hands, picks up the brush and fixes it.  My mistakes are still there, but he covers it with his grace and makes me beautiful once more.  He never mentions them again.

I hang in the grand museum of heaven, featuring billions of canvases specifically placed on certain walls in ideal proximity of each other.  Currently, I rest on the wall of my college years, surrounded by college friends, as well as my family.  In a few weeks, I'll be moved to the Haiti wall, participating in a missions trip down there.   This summer, I shall decorate a France wall, surrounded by people somewhat like me who also want to study abroad.  Each time I am moved, it is done with great care and consideration, always in a way to exemplify my own beauty, as well as the beauty of the museum.

Someday, perhaps in the not so distant future, my canvas will be permanently affixed to another canvas with God glue.  Together, the two canvases will become one, and God will move us around the museum as is best suited for who we are and what we can do.  

Yes, the Artist, the Museum Curator, he decides who we are and what we do.  But like any artist with their work, it is done with the greatest care imaginable. 

Dear Jesus,

Thank you so much.  I so very prefer to be a piece of art than a plastic castle.  Holy Spirit help me remember what a treasure I am, and how thoughtfully my place in this world has been and will be decided.  I look forward to seeing where you move me next, my loving Daddy-God.

I love you,

Amen.

3 Wishes

Once upon a time there lived a young woman named Rose. 

Poor Rose's garden looked utterly despondent.  Her flowers were browning, aphids had taken over, and the tomatoes refused to grow. In an effort to bring new life to her yard, she rolled up her sleeves and pushed her spade into the ground and withdrew a clump of earth. Returning her shovel to the ground, she heard a quiet "clink."  Curious, she pushed the dirt out of the way and discovered a teapot buried there.

Painted a deep shade of purple with elaborate gold filigree, Rose was surpised to find it there.  She removed it from the ground and worked to rub away the dirt with her coat sleeve.

Suddenly, the teapot began to vigorously shake! A puff of glitter spewed from the spout and a little girl appeared!

Wearing a gold tutu with purple polka-dots, she floated three feet above the ground in order to make herself eye level with Rose.  After taking a moment to adjust the golden curls surrounding a cheribic face, the little person bowed to Rose and said, "Your wish is my command!"

"Oh dear!" said Rose.  "What are you?"

"I am a genie, Rose.  I live in that teapot and only come out when it is rubbed by mortals. It is quite cozy, actually, andI would very much like to go back.  Unfortunatley I am doomed to remain out here until I grant three wishes for the bearer of the teapot."

"You enjoy living in this thing?" asked Rose.

"Yes I do!  I have filled it with the most wonderful things; sunshine, rainbows, crunchy leaves, green trees, and chocolate milk cows." 

At first Rose was suprised that so many things fit into that ordinary sized tea pot, but then she realized she was talking to a genie, and decided it was not worth meditating on.  Instead she asked what she should call her new companion.

"Gertrude," was the response. "But enough with the formalities, please Rose, let me grant you three wishes so that I may go back home."

Since she had been working in her garden anyway, Rose wished her garden was beautiful.

"As you wish," responded Gertrude, who pulled out a handkerchief and began sneezing. The cheerless garden turned into a flowering Eden, complete with water feature.  "I threw that in as a bonus," she explained.

Rose was astounded!  Her feet carried her around her new yard as she soaked in all the sights and smells.  Stunning flowers in a rainbow of colors, grass softer than a feather bed, and grape tomatoes the size of apples!

But Gertrude was impatient.  Floating in front of Rose as she wandered, she demanded another wish be asked.  "You have the rest of your life to enjoy your garden, now help me get back to mine!"

Rose looked around herself.  Between the branches of her vivacious apple tree, she could see her delapitated house.  The shutters were falling, the paint was peeling, the roof leaked, and the door was so difficult to open that Rose had resorted to climbing through the window.

"I wish my house could look like the darling country cottage it was intended to be."

Pulling out her hankie and falling into a second sneezing fit more violent than the last, Gertrude transformed the crumbling shack into a house directly out of a story book.  Painted yellow with a dark red door and calico curtains in the window, Rose fell instantly in love.

But before she could cross the threshold, Gertrude blocked her path once more.  "I will not let you in your home until you send me back to mine!"

Dissapointed, but not wanting to upset the Genie too much, Rose stepped back into her garden.

As she stood there, she caught a glimpse of herself in her new fountain. She despised her appearance.  Her hair never sat right, her cheeks always had a ruddy hue, and her nose seemed to be the most prominent feature on her face.

"My garden is beautiful, my house is beautiful, I wish I was beautiful too!"

Gertrude pulled out her hankie, made one, delicate sniffle, and zipped towards the teapot.  But Rose jerked it away as she turned to look at her reflection.

"Nothing has changed!" she cried in despair.  "You could grow my dying garden and fix my broken house, but I am so far gone that nothing can be done for me!"

Offended, Gertrude retorted, "Now wait a minute! I did my job, you are beautiful, so let me back to my house!"  Making a dash for her teapot, she caught sight of the tears streaming down Rose's face. With an exasperated sigh, she tried again.

"Your garden was pretty bad, so it took quite a sneeze to fix it. Your house was much worse, and it took even more sneezing to fix that. You, on the other hand, have always been beautiful.  All you took was a sniffle to get the dirt out from under your finger nails."

Rose looked at her, unconvinced.  "Then why do the other girls look so much prettier than me all the time?"

"Don't you know?  God made you beautiful in your own way, completely different than anyone else's beauty.  So stop crying and let me go home!"

Rose uncovered the teapot and Gertrude shrunk to the size of a push pin and slid down the spout.

Drying her eyes, Rose looked at her reflection once more. Her hair had too much life to sit a certain way, her cheeks were rosy, not ruddy, and her nose seemed much more appropriately sized than she realized.

Looking around her, she realized Gertrude must be right.  The Genie had enough power to make the garden utterly glorious and the house completely charming, Rose must be beautiful too.

Beauty, she decided, is not a scale with which to compare who is prettiest.  "Beauty simpy is, and it is all over me."