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Why do we equate beauty with youthfulness and youthfulness with beauty?
The year that I was engaged I was also completing my degree in Primary Education including a 2 month teaching practise in a lovely market town in County Londonderry. Now that was a stressful, busy time – and a tale for another day. A friend and colleague of my fiancé had offered to let me stay with her so that I didn’t have to travel in from the North Coast every day and what a treat it was; her beautiful bungalow was a whole lot nicer than my student flat and it meant that I was 40 minutes closer to my fiancé. It was a glorious late spring/early summer that year and I walked to and from the school every day. The weather was so beautiful that it was a treat; wearing trainers with my very conservative workwear, as dictated by my university, and listening to music on my Sony Walkman, I was, in truth, a sight to behold. Imagine, if you will, a very slim, long haired young woman wearing what could only be described as a stereotypical librarian’s skirt and blouse combo with tights and a pair of clumpy, purple (not cool) 1980s track shoes. As a side bar, you should know that one particular day, I forgot my little block heeled pumps and so had to wear my trainers until lunch time when my long suffering “landlady” brought me my shoes. In keeping with Murphy’s Law it would of course be a day when I was wearing navy, rather than nude, tights. Even the head master was, and I quote, “wondering”…
During those wonderful walks I had a mix of tapes that I listened to but my favourite hands down was Amy Grant’s In Concert album released in 1981. Oh I know how terribly dated it sounds now (and you should have a listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/0SZJhP0K638LjKAZZThnyv?si=R4dCw8T1Q4---YHKEFMoYA ) but I loved every track and sang along for the bulk of my journey. In fact, “All I Ever Have To Be” had been something of an anthem for me during my university years, but again, I’ll keep that story in reserve. However, it is one little track that has stuck with me; “Mimi’s House” has become a definition of the old lady I would like to be. Mimi in the song is Amy Grant’s Great Grandmother who is very elderly but light of heart with an infectious, out loud laugh and a warm and welcoming gift of hospitality. The song makes it clear, however, that Mimi’s standout characteristic is her faith and Grant shares how this makes her feel much more positively about her own future aging, “And when I stop and think of how she’s aging; growing strong and graceful in her God. Well you know it takes away my fear of aging”. Mimi is the old lady I would like to be one day; a woman growing old gracefully and naturally, whose home is a welcoming sanctuary and a place of nurturing for all. I want to be an old woman who can set an example in godliness while still having a laugh that is infectious and, in my case, very loud.
So if I know where I want to get to as a woman why can’t I use this knowledge as my map for the journey ahead?
In my last post I talked about how my attitude to my appearance is not what it should be. I struggle to accept this new middle aged version of myself. It got me thinking a lot about what it actually means to grow old gracefully in today’s society and also about the amount of time and money (not to mention angst) that we spend on trying to maintain a “youthful” appearance. Why is it that this is so important to us as a society? And what is so great about looking youthful anyway? (I was VERY spotty for a start!)
Last year Reuters.com posted a report by OrbiResearch.com which stated that “The Global Anti-Aging Market was worth $250 billion in 2016 and estimated to be growing at a CAGR of 5.8%, to reach $331.41 billion by 2021.” prezi.com describes the Cult of Youthfulness as “people's modern obsession with looking and feeling young forever [which] involves people's feelings about aging and the many processes they undergo in order to stay young.” [The Cult of Youthfulness by Caroline Madrona and Tisien Palacio] Now I know that the desire to stay young looking is not a new thing; for centuries women, e.g. Cleopatra, and to a lesser degree men, have tried to stay looking young but somehow in the last few decades it seems to have become much more obsessive. Or maybe our modern society with more free time, increased expendable income and the pressure of TV, movies, magazines and now the internet bombarding us with unattainable images, simultaneously pressurizes and enables us to invest heavily in our appearance. When I stop listening to the cacophonous whine of that pressure and instead listen to my inner voice, then my soul is sad; sad that as human beings in all our complexity, beauty and wonder we can be reduced to being concerned so overwhelmingly with how young we look – indeed how we look full stop.
Is this a worldwide phenomenon then? The Huffington Post would certainly say not; “While many cultures celebrate the aging process and venerate their elders, in Western cultures — where youth is fetishized and the elderly are commonly removed from the community and relegated to hospitals and nursing homes — aging can become a shameful experience. Physical signs of human aging tend to be regarded with distaste, and aging is often depicted in a negative light in popular culture, if it is even depicted at all.” And they quote Arianna Huffington from her book, On Becoming Fearless where she talks about how; “The Western cultural stigma around aging and death doesn’t exist in Greece. In Greek and Greek-American culture, old age is honored and celebrated, and respect for elders is central to the family. … The idea of honoring old age, indeed identifying it with wisdom and closeness to God, is in startling contrast to the way we treat aging in America.”
Huffington Post have also written about how “It’s customary in Korea to have a big celebration to mark an individual’s 60th and 70th birthdays. The hwan-gap, or 60th birthday, is a joyous time when children celebrate their parents’ passage into old age. Their age is thought to be reason for celebration in part because many of their ancestors would not have survived past the age of 60 without the advances of modern medicine. A similar large family celebration is held for the 70th birthday, known as kohCui (“old and rare”).”
Many years ago I was challenged to ask God for a spiritual gift and I asked for the gift of wisdom. Now it’s not for me to say whether God has responded in the affirmative to that prayer or not but one thing is for sure; if He has then I don’t really expect that that wisdom will come as a finished package. I expect that it will come with my increasing years and experience (not to mention a better knowledge of His word, The Bible, and a more regular prayer life). As we live and grow older we go through experiences that mark us and change us. This is how we learn and mature. As a Christian I want to be looking to God for His perspective on what these experiences mean and to be changed the right way by them and Him – to be malleable so that the Holy Spirit can work in me and make me more Christ like. The scars of this life don’t have to be ugly; the signs of aging don’t have to be distasteful. These marks and signs can in fact be beautiful, showing that we are living full, authentic lives, lives that are focused on what actually matters; not surface, transient things but things of the heart and the soul and the renewed mind. On Instagram @jillbennettinteriors (whose beautifully photographed interiors are well worth following) recently wrote about Wabi-Sabi which is a Japanese philosophy that “celebrates the beauty in our naturally imperfect world. ‘Wabi’ means an understated elegance through rustic, simple and natural design. ‘Sabi’ means seeing beauty in the flaws that come with age.…it’s also about being able to accept life as it is for you in this moment. Being ‘happy with your lot’. Life is full of imperfections after all. Just because a bowl has a chip doesn’t mean it’s worthless.” When you combine this with the Japanese art of Kintsukuroi, or “golden repair”, (a “centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with a special lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Beautiful seams of gold glint in the cracks of ceramic ware, giving a unique appearance to the piece.” mymodernmet.com) it makes me realise that, actually, I think I’ll keep my crows’ feet because God is willing to fill them with His beauty which is more beautiful than any earthly gold.
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