The Direction of Intention

When I tell Kerri that she is beautiful she deflects or minimizes my words. She tells me that I am biased or acts as if she didn’t hear me. She is not unique in her response. How many of us have long ago shielded ourselves against the idea that we are beautiful?

Peel back the layers.

Many years ago a student came to my office. He was sobbing. He had recently revealed to his family and peers that he was gay and their overwhelming message back to him was that he was broken and needed to be fixed. He was vulnerable in revealing his truth – his beauty – and was slapped. The message: you are ugly. In his despair he could not see that the ugliness was in how he was being treated. At some point he cried, “I just want to break something!” I thought that was a very good idea so we went outside and hurled ceramic plates at a brick wall. We laughed and laughed until he could hear the words, “You are not broken”.

What I didn’t say to him was this: They want to hammer you into compliance because they fear your difference. Fearful people are threatened by difference. They label it as ugly. Your difference is what makes you unique, beautiful and special.

Isn’t it interesting to you that we-the-people, inhabiting the most individualistic nation on the planet, buy our clothes from the same retailers, worship hallowed brands, with the express purpose of fitting in? We express our individuality, judge our beauty, by conforming to a fashion image.

It is one of the reasons why Kerri cannot possibly allow my admiration of her beauty. She doesn’t fit the magazine-model-ideal. She is a blue-jeans-and-boots wearing, black thermal shirt girl (thank god!). It creates a split. On the one hand, she is an artist, a woman wrapped in difference who easily lives on the margins so she can more clearly see and reflect the society in her music, writing, and photographs. On the other hand, she cannot allow the notion that her difference is the very thing that reveals her beauty. She doesn’t fit the norm. She doesn’t match the magazine ideal or wear the right brands. She compares herself to those who do so she can’t possibly allow that she is uniquely beautiful.

It’s a lot of pressure, this need to fit in. In fact, it is a basic survival instinct to a herd animal like a human being. That is the real beauty, the magic of these United States. It is a society that, at it’s best, when it is in its right mind, strives to create the inclusion of difference, intends to celebrate the unique, make a safe home for diversity, a safe place for all to worship as they choose, love who they choose. In the ideal, difference – sometimes called “freedom” – is protected equally for all under the law.

We wrestle with the split. We need to remember that we are unique in the history of the world. We are a democracy comprised of people from all over this gloriously diverse planet, a nation of immigrants. This latest attempt by the morbidly fearful to scrub ourselves bland, straight and white, to bludgeon us back-in-time to some fantasy uniform past, is ugly and destructive. They would bully us into conformity, a one-size-fits-all mentality. We need only remember that our difference, our diversity, is precisely what makes these United States of America unique, beautiful and special.

This is not the time to deflect. What makes us truly beautiful is worth owning and vigorously protecting.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BEAUTIFUL

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