Pretty Is...

“Pretty is as pretty does” used to be a common admonition of mothers to their preteen and teen-aged daughters. Currently, our culture teaches us that pretty is…

as Instagram records…

as the numbers on the scale tell me…

as I choose to load to my dating app… 

as the number of heads I turn on the dance floor, at the mall, in the restaurant.

Being a woman d’un certain âge I can certainly relate to adding elements to my beauty routine that never used to be there before…all with the requisite price tags.  And that final ’s’ is on purpose!

What to the eye is first apparent, is only an impression…not a definition. 

Women especially find themselves sucked into the comparison game.  How should we fight this personhood warping scheme?  What to the eye is first apparent, is only an impression…not a definition. 

I have a 40 year old friend who is confined to a wheelchair.  If you met her around town, that would be your first impression.  But that constraint does not define her.  Her humor, her can-do spirit, her passion for gardening, her devotion to her children are all much more prominent than the wheelchair once you get to know her.

What if beauty had more to do with…

…making others feel at home, rather than showing off my home?

…accepting people with their limitations, rather than limiting acceptance because of the external?

…befriending those of another skin color, sexual orientation, political party or religion, rather than vetting friendship through predetermined screens?

…extending the graciousness of patience and kindness; rather than the kind of ungracious irritability that estranges?

…the smile flirting across your face, rather than possessing the right arch of brow or line of chin?

Constraints do not define us. Actions do.

The constraints of our looks do not define us. Actions do, because they reflect what’s deeper.  Actions reflect personal ambitions, accepted beliefs, ingrained habits, ideological viewpoints.  Actions make apparent the unapparent.

“Pretty is as pretty does.”  I remember my consternation the first time I read the expression as a girl of ten.  I read it in a volume of the Little House on the Prairie series. Even in my girlhood it was fading from usage. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.  I had to look further ahead to figure it out.

Maybe that is the important lesson.  Look further.  After all, pretty is…pretty unimportant.

“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature…for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  I Samuel 16: 7