The body acceptance movement is fundamentally flawed

Selfie sticks: a whole new level of narcissism

My husband and I were wandering around Victoria BC’s inner harbour awaiting the departure of our whale watching tour (which, incidentally, delivered with a spectacular sighting of cavorting killer whales) when we spotted a couple with a smart phone on a stick. They were dutifully following behind the stick, oblivious of others and the surroundings as they took photos of themselves. 

While I don’t know if the manner in which they were using their selfie stick is common, the entire selfie craze suggests that we are pretty darn pleased with ourselves. However, there is ample evidence to the contrary.  We have a hard time accepting ourselves, and our physical appearance is a particular source of angst. 

Body acceptance movement: struggling to accept our bodies 

The body acceptance movement is a case in point. Variously known as “fat acceptance”, “body love”, and “ending fat shame”, the body acceptance movement is gaining traction.  Women of all shapes and sizes are beginning to react negatively to advertising campaigns that restrict beauty to the ideals of the runway. (A 2014 Victoria’s Secret campaign drew the wrath of at least 27,000 people who successfully petitioned the lingerie company to change its ads.) 

Some magazines are bucking the skinny cover model trend. Vogue Italia led the way a few years ago when three plus size models made the cover. This year, Tess Halliday and Erica Jean Schnek made headlines when their photos appeared on the covers of People and Women’s Running respectively, and ignited debate about obesity, health and fitness.

Although the body acceptance movement is primarily associated with obesity in women, plus size women are not alone in the struggle to accept their bodies. Skinny or fat, young or old, and all points in between, women and men are constantly confronted with impossible and unrealistic ideals of beauty and vitality that encourage self-dissatisfaction. Children, too, are exposed to these ideals from an early age and internalize messages that conflate self-worth and physical appearance.

As a child, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, who was very loving and kind. She was also beautiful in my eyes and stood out from the crowd. She was on the tall side for her generation, did her core routine twice daily, dressed well and wore heels until the day she died. People were drawn to her and described her as attractive and gracious, but when she looked in the mirror, all she saw were her wrinkles, and I remember her lamenting “these darn wrinkles”.  

From an early age, I internalized a message about wrinkles, aging and beauty with which I still sometimes struggle. Some days when I look in the mirror my own darn wrinkles really get under my skin. Other times, when I am more inwardly and spiritually content, the wrinkles are inconsequential, playing second fiddle to a deeper, more profound me. 

Body acceptance movement is flawed

The body acceptance movement, despite its good intentions, is flawed. Its mantra to embrace your curves puts the cart before the horse.  Beauty is more than skin deep. So whether it’s wrinkles or weight, dissatisfaction with our body reflects some sort of inner unhappiness that is rooted in relationships and experiences that shape us from the inside out. 

No matter how much we profess to love our curves, so-called “body positivity” on its own is insufficient to change our interior narrative.   To “embrace” fatness or thinness can become an excuse for ignoring the life-long process of inner transformation that leads to authentic self-acceptance.

Body acceptance has little to do with clothing size or the image captured on that high tech mirror called a smart phone.  It has everything to do with the condition of our interior life. If we obsess on our appearance to the exclusion of our inner transformation, we will never be comfortable in our own body. When we look in the mirror, we will see our self darkly, as through a smoky, gray cloud instead of illuminated with light, aglow with the beautiful colours of our soul. That’s an image that not even the smartest phone can capture.

Online shaming

"With no one but the online mob as guide, it (is) all too easy for people to throw stones, while claiming the moral high road for themselves."

A modern twist on an ancient story

It's a modern twist on an ancient story.

Our modern story concerns some scandalous behaviour that occurred during a summer festival in Alberta. 

The ancient story, recounted in the Gospel of John, goes something like this. Some Scribes and Pharisees, accompanied, I imagine, by a crowd of onlookers, brought a woman “caught in the very act of adultery” to Jesus. Their motives are questionable. Not terribly concerned about adultery, they want to trap Jesus with a tricky question. 

Rembrandt: Woman Taken in Adultery
National Gallery, London

They ask him if they should stone the woman. Jesus, who is in no hurry to answer, bends down and writes in the sand before he looks at the woman’s accusers and says, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”   Beginning with the elders, the crowd slowly disperses as individuals slink away in embarrassed, guilty silence. 

Left alone with the woman, Jesus asks her, “Does no one condemn you?”  to which she replies, “No.”  “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more,” responds Jesus.

The modern version of the story goes like this. 

A young woman and two male friends were cavorting in an alley when a Peeping Tom spotted them, filmed their tryst and posted the video online where it went viral. Viewed by several million people, the woman became the object of online shaming, while the men were applauded.

There are lots of things wrong here, as others have pointed out.  Some point to an invasion of privacy. Others focus on society's acceptance of online shaming. Still others draw attention to the misogyny inherent in the shaming that slams the woman and high-fives the men. All of these concerns point to the precarious condition of the collective moral compass.

Let’s return to the crowd in John’s story.

A few individuals had probably whipped up the moral outrage of some in that ancient crowd. Others may have just been along for the ride, not wanting to miss out on a good spectacle. And a spectacle it was, although not the kind they were expecting. 

Jesus silenced everyone, effectively asking, “Are you sinless?”. He created space for people to think about their own behaviour.  With the moral compass swinging away from the woman towards their own shortcomings, people in John’s crowd had the good sense to shut up and go home. 

Not so for today’s online crowd. With technology providing an instant platform to condemn someone else’s bad behaviour, our crowd was neither predisposed nor inclined towards self reflection.  And with no one but the online mob as guide, it was all too easy for people to throw stones, while claiming the moral high road for themselves.

Without even realizing it, the online crowd called its own moral credibility into question. It was, you might say, “caught in the very act” of voyeuristic tendencies, which are hardly a hallmark of integrity. In shaming, the group restricted moral conduct to the breaking of sexual taboos . They forgot that the way we treat others outside of intimacy also speaks to the content of our character. 

The collective moral compass is in need of repair.  No one involved in this sad and sordid affair can claim the moral high road. Everyone - the threesome, the filmmaker, and those who viewed and commented - sullied themselves with their failure to respect the innate dignity of the human person.

Our ancient story teaches that sin is not excused, but forgiven. Moral slip ups are not a cause for condemnation. They are an opportunity for tweaking a wobbly moral compass and getting back on track.

 Compass image: courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Laudato Si': Care for our Common Home

Dubbed the "climate change encyclical",  Laudato Si' is really about relationships.

In Laudato Si’: On Care For Our Common Home, Pope Francis calls the world to rethink and transform the “outdated criteria which continue to rule the world.”

From the first page, this encyclical hooked me with its straightforward and direct language, occasionally surprising me with its bluntness, such as when Francis described the world as resembling a “pile of filth”, or criticized politicians for lacking “breadth of vision.” Other times, the language is more poetic, particularly when the pope praises the beauty of creation.

In Laudato Si’, Francis attempts to gather the thought of the universal church on the connection between the environment and social issues. Not only does he refer to the teachings of his predecessors, Francis makes numerous references to statements on the environment from Catholic bishops’ conferences around the world. He also devotes several paragraphs to the teaching of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. 

Although it has been dubbed “the climate change encyclical”, the discussion on climate change is only a small portion of Laudato Si’.  Those who focus on the pope’s comments on climate change miss the point. This encyclical is about three key relationships – humanity’s relationship with God, with the created world, and with one another – and it reflects on the problems existing within the web of these relationships.

At the root of the environmental crisis, says Francis, is a “misguided anthropocentrism” that places human beings at the center. In our hubris, we have fallen prey to “unrestrained delusions of grandeur”. We seek mastery over nature instead of respecting it as a sacred gift. We are turning ““a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness” into something that “is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth”. 

Francis talks about the utilitarian mindset that leads us to treat others with disregard, valuing them only in so far as they are useful to us. We are more interested in convenience and consumption, economics and power than in the intrinsic dignity of the human person and nature. In the theology of this encyclical, our lifestyle and mindset blind us to the destruction of the environment and deafen us to the cries of the poor.

Francis cautions that if we continue to see ourselves as independent from others and as separate from nature, our attempts to heal the environment will be piecemeal at best. Healing the environment requires healing the other two key relationships; “our relationship with the environment can never be isolated from our relationship with others and with God. Otherwise, it would be nothing more than romantic individualism dressed up in ecological garb”.  A true ecological approach is therefore always a social approach; “it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor”.  

Less we feel overwhelmed and discouraged by the reality of the challenges facing humanity, the encyclical offers hope.  Human beings have the capacity to transform the present environmental and social crisis, but it will require a change of heart and attitude.  We will do well to heed an ancient lesson common in religious traditions,  ‘less is more’, and to cultivate a spirit of moderation that is happy with fewer goods even if it is contrary to today’s culture of consumption and waste.

From developing enforceable international environmental polices to small individual actions, everyone has a part to play in caring for our common home.  We renew the social fabric, break down indifference, and forge a shared identity, says Francis, when we promote the common good and defend the environment.  “Social love moves us to devise larger strategies to halt environmental degradation and to encourage a “culture of care” which permeates all of society.” 

Laudato Si’ challenges us, individually and collectively, to confront the environmental crisis and to resolve the inequalities of human society. The future hangs in the balance of our response.

Euphemisms: making lies sound truthful

Someone challenged my use of the term “physician assisted dying”, describing it as mealy mouthed. I had used the term while commenting on the Carter decision, which deals with assisted suicide. In retrospect, my choice of language was a bit wimpy. I was doing what people have been doing for millennia, opting for the politically correct language of a euphemism instead of speaking plainly.

Euphemisms help us avoid taboo and painful topics

Euphemisms have been around at least since biblical times when to uncover a man’s foot was an idiom for making sexual advances. Today, as in the 10^th century, people “sleep together”, and everyone knows the intention behind an invitation for a “nightcap”.  

In classical times, “curled up”,  “gone to sleep”, or “on a journey” were euphemisms for death. Now, we “pass away”, “pass on”, or “go to a better place”. Depending on the circumstances, we might even experience a “negative patient outcome.”

The human body and its functions are a rich source of euphemism. The English language has over 2500 words for the body’s “private parts” and numerous phrases to describe natural functions; “pees and poos” are those unspeakable things we do when we “go to the bathroom.”  And before it was polite to say that a woman was pregnant, or for a pregnant woman to proudly display her “condition”, she was “with child”, “in the family way”, or (my personal favorite dating from Victorian times) had “a bun in the oven”.

While some euphemisms help us navigate our way around embarrassing, painful or taboo subjects, others help us save face or elevate our position. Corporations that want to bolster their bottom line “downsize” and respected managers get “the golden handshake”.  Someone who is unemployed is “between jobs” or “making a career change.”   Secretaries and janitors have gone the way of the dinosaurs with “administrative assistants” and “sanitation engineers” stepping into fill the void.  Perhaps one day, “pedagogical mentors” will replace teachers.

They fool us into thinking we are enlightened

Then there are those euphemisms that fool us into thinking we are clever and enlightened. “Monogam-ish”, a term recently coined by sex columnist Dan Savage, falls into this category. To be monogam-ish is to be mostly faithful to your partner, while embracing the occasional affair as a normal and healthy part of a committed relationship.  The media, quick to pick up on any idea that is remotely trendy, encouraged debate on the validity of monogamy for our time and invited people to describe their experience of being monogam-ish.  But if we are to be truthful, monogam-ish is nothing other than plain old-fashioned infidelity once we remove the smokescreen of language.

Equally dangerous are those mealy mouthed phrases that sugarcoat the unpalatable and disguise inconvenient truths. “Collateral damage” sanitizes the loss of human life, and “enhanced interrogation techniques” masks torture.

And what about “physician assisted dying”, the term for which I opted?  At one time, we talked about  “mercy killing”, and more recently, “assisted suicide”.  But since we have no appetite for state sanctioned murder, we have found increasingly more complex ways to describe a questionable action. “Medical aid in dying” and “physician assisted dying” are easier to tolerate than terms that point towards killing. As with military terminology that camouflages the truth, these terms desensitize us to the reality of what we are doing. 

Like the Emperor's new clothes, they swindle our conscience

Some euphemisms are like the emperor’s new clothes, swindling our conscience and obscuring the truth.  So while indirect speech allows us to talk politely about awkward, embarrassing or painful subjects, sometimes it is, to quote George Orwell, designed to “make lies sound truthful, murder respectful and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Vanier discovered the art of being human through the disabled

Vanier found a hidden world of anguish

At the end of a steep hill in the neighbourhood where I grew up, there stood a house shrouded in mystery. Adults whispered about a “retarded” child who lived there and who was confined to a room. They argued about whether or not his parents should put him in a “home”.

I was both fascinated and afraid when I passed by the house. I had no context for the comments I overheard. I wondered about the boy, about his appearance, how he spent his day, was he lonely, and would he hurt me if he came out of the house.

That was in the mid 1960’s around the time that Jean Vanier, the 2015 Templeton Prize winner, visited an asylum, a “home”, in Trosly, France.  It was the house of my neighbourhood on a grand scale and he was as ignorant of it as were the people in my neighbourhood.  

Credit: http://templetonprize.org/images/2015/vanier-headshot.jpg

He discovered a hidden world of anguish, shame and hopelessness, a place where intellectually disabled people were shut away from sight. So, he took action, inviting two of the men who had no family to live with him. Their mutually transformative experience of living as peers - eating, doing chores and, sometimes, fighting - gradually began to attract others.

This was the humble beginning of L’Arche, a unique organization of 147 communities around the globe that fosters the mutual transformation of all its members – whether able or disabled.  Emphasizing our common humanity, L’Arche is a sign of hope for the world, demonstrating that people of different cultures, religions and  abilities can live together in peace. 

The liberating experience of L'Arche embraces vulnerability

Vanier’s experience in that first L’Arche community was liberating.  Freed from the culture of success where people are valued for their abilities and achievements, Vanier discovered what it means to be fully human.  In Vanier’s experience and thought, to be fully human means to discover that each individual is a treasured part of the human family; before being a Christian or a Jew, before being an American or a Russian, before having visible or invisible disabilities, we are a person. 

When Vanier speaks of what it means to be fully human, he embraces the vulnerability that many of us try to hide. For Vanier, the story of every individual is the discovery of one’s fragility; we are born, grow and die in weakness.

Living with vulnerable people has taught him that the cry of the disabled for love is the common cry of every person. It is a cry that echoes the heart of God. When people are loved for who they are, not for what they can do, the spirit soars and they can enter more deeply into relationship. “To become fully human is to let down the barriers, to open up and to discover that every person is beautiful. Under all the jobs and responsibilities, there is you.” 

Vanier made a lasting impression in a small town

I first heard of Vanier in the 1970’s.  My late mother-in-law, who was instrumental in bringing Vanier to our diocese to give a retreat, said of him,  “He preached the gospel by the way he lived.”  He made a deep and lasting impression on her, as he did on other individuals who attended that retreat, and who, despite the passing of decades, still speak about him with great clarity.

One woman, who told me of her retreat experience, said the content of the retreat was secondary to Vanier himself. He opened up a God of love to her with his gentle manner and the love in his eyes.  Listening to Vanier, she said all these years later, “was like sitting as a child at the feet of the Master”, adding, “he could have said anything and reached me.”

Another individual described Vanier to me saying, “He is the most authentic person I have ever met. His commitment to the gospel was remarkable and he was living it beautifully.”  

Posing a tough question

The Templeton Prize, valued at approximately US $1.7 million, honors an individual who has made an extraordinary contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.  While it is clear that Vanier’s Christian faith and love of Jesus is at the basis of his lived theology, he is not pushy about creed.  When asked what he would say to a person who does not believe in God, Vanier replied, “Do you believe in love? You don’t need to believe in God. God is love. The important thing is not belief - but can you grow in love?”

That may be the tougher question.