Category: Faith

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Aging Beautifully

I came across this video this morning (as I don’t have a TV I don’t see commercials in the usual way):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXTZbv4fums

Turning 60 last November was very strange for me. I don’t feel 60 — what should it feel like? I think I don’t look 60 — or what my imagination says 60 should look like. Where do those images come from? And how does one change them?

Like so many women I struggle with body image. Going to the swimming pool with my daughter and grandkids while in California, I had to change into a bathing suit in a semi-public area, then walk from the change rooms to the pool (once in the pool I didn’t care anymore about the scars or cellulite or the way my belly sticks out or my boobs don’t) I do it fighting an unwanted sense of shame.

I watch my granddaughter, at age 5, completely unaware that there is any reason to feel badly about her body. I see my daughter who wears a bikini even if, after two babies, her belly is no longer flat. I am so glad that I have not passed on to her all of my traits!

One older woman dressing after a swim complimented my long skirt. She commented that at the athletic club you frequently see the same people wearing very little, and then you see them somewhere else, dressed, and they look familiar but it takes some minutes to figure out who they are.

Another woman about my daughter’s age had forgotten her towels. She walked around the shower/change rooms, drying herself and her little girl with several washcloths without any embarrassment or self-consciousness. How I envied her.

When my Beloved Man tells me that I am beautiful, that I have a beautiful body, I rejoice that as we age our eyesight diminishes. Ha! I accept his compliments with joy, but I don’t really believe him now any more than I believed Volker 40 years ago? Why?

Truly, I am grateful that, thanks to good genetics and a healthy lifestyle, I have a strong healthy body, that I can freely move through each day, play with my grandkids, make love with joy and so much more.

I resolve to keep on giving my body good food, plenty of exercise and loving care so that I can keep on feeling young. I will likely continue to feel that sense of shame about my body, but I will not live there. I will feel it, but not own it. I am beautiful, whatever my age!

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Prayer Beads

I wonder what my Amish grandparents would think of my Catholic ways?

For several years now I have listened to the Jesuits’ Pray-as-you-go podcasts on a daily basis, usually part of my bedtime routine. As well, I have started reading through the Carmelite’s Lectio Divina every morning with my first cup of coffee.

Growing up I never heard of “Seasons of the Church,” or Advent or Lent, yet now they are celebrated in our worship.

This week I decided to make a set of “Anglican Prayer Beads” (what’s the difference between a rosary and Anglican Prayer beads, I wonder). I’m not sure I will follow any formulaic pattern for my prayers — that just isn’t how I have talked with God all my life. But the idea of having something in my hands when I pray, if it is just to give each bead a person’s name, or to give a thanksgiving to each of the beads in one “week”, a petition to each bead in another or some other pattern, I look forward to finding a way to deepen my relationship with God through yet another Catholic practice.

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Mediation on Mark 5:25-34

HealBleedingWoman
Christ healing a bleeding woman Photo from Catacombes of Rome Source: http://campus.belmont.edu/honors/CatPix/womanblood.jpg Over 1500 years old 2d art

Now there was a woman who had suffered from a haemorrhage for twelve years; after long and painful treatment under various doctors, she had spent all she had without being any the better for it; in fact, she was getting worse. She had heard about Jesus, and she came up through the crowd and touched his cloak from behind, thinking, ‘If I can just touch his clothes, I shall be saved.’
And at once the source of the bleeding dried up, and she felt in herself that she was cured of her complaint. And at once aware of the power that had gone out from him, Jesus turned round in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ His disciples said to him, ‘You see how the crowd is pressing round you; how can you ask, “Who touched me?”‘ But he continued to look all round to see who had done it. Then the woman came forward, frightened and trembling because she knew what had happened to her, and she fell at his feet and told him the whole truth. ‘My daughter,’ he said, ‘your faith has restored you to health; go in peace and be free of your complaint.’ Mark 5:25-34

Here is a story I love. This un-named woman, who for twelve long years has been excluded from her faith community because her haemorrhaging, hears that Jesus is near. Hope gives her courage to put aside all that she has been told about her unworthiness. Trust in her own innate sense of value whispers at she can do what others have forbidden. Faith propels her through the crowd, unmindful of who else she might be touching. Love of and desire for life abundant move her to reach out and touch Jesus’s robe. She does not wish to distract him from whatever he is doing; she does not want to disturb him or call attention to herself. Just touch his robe. And it works! Glory be! She knew immediately that her body had been healed!

And Jesus knew immediately that power had gone out from him. He asks, “who touched me?” His disciples think he’s crazy — so many people are touching him. Are they too being healed? I think not, for this woman’s touch was somehow different.

This is the crucial part, I think: the woman again takes responsibility for her own life and actions. She steps forward, so afraid and yet so filled with joy at her release. What will the penalty be for all the wrong she has just committed? Defiling so many by coming into the crowd. Touching, and making unclean, this popular Teacher.

Can you not see God’s infinite love in Jesus’s response? “My daughter” he calls her. Not sister, not mother, but daughter — one from your own heart and body, one you protect, nurture, love forever. He then affirms everything she has just done — her hope, trust, faith, love and desire for life. She was right, life abundant can be hers, too. Glory be to God!

[C]haracter — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs. Joan Didion, Slouching toward Bethlehem

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December 24

Luke 1:67-79

His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
    because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
    in the house of his servant David
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
salvation from our enemies
    and from the hand of all who hate us—
to show mercy to our ancestors
    and to remember his holy covenant,
    the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
    and to enable us to serve him without fear
    in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
    for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
to give his people the knowledge of salvation
    through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
    by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
    and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

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December 23

Luke 1: 57-66

When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”

They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”

Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God. All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.

Last year I wrote for my friend’s blog about the importance of children’s names. http://twosnydergirls.blogspot.ca/2013/10/

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