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Beauty✿
A site to encourage a healthy perspective of beauty...
Why cover?
November 1, 2023
In a Facebook post, Judy Mauldin shares the following:
A girl bought an iPad. When her father saw it, He asked her "What was the 1st thing you did when you bought it?"
"I put an anti-scratch sticker on the screen and bought a cover for the iPad" she replied.
"Did someone force you to do so?"
- "No"
"Don't you think its an insult to the
manufacturer?"
- "No Dad! In fact, they even recommend using a cover for the iPad."
"Did you cover it because it was cheap & ugly?"
- "Actually, I covered it because I didn't want it to get damaged and decrease in value."
"When you put the cover on, didn't it reduce the iPad's beauty?"
- "I think it looks better and it is worth it for the protection it gives my iPad."
The father looked lovingly at his daughter and said,
"Yet if I had asked you to cover your body which is much more precious than the iPad, would you have readily agreed???"
She was mute......
~ Indecent dressing and exposure of your body reduces your value and respect.
Always dress decently.
Pretty Ugly - a poem by Abdullah Shoaib
September 25, 2018
Why is Modern Art so Bad?
April 4, 2017
"For two millennia, great artists set the standard for beauty. Now those standards are gone. Modern art is a competition between the ugly and the twisted; the most shocking wins. What happened? How did the beautiful come to be reviled and bad taste come to be celebrated? Renowned artist Robert Florczak explains the history and the mystery behind this change and how it can be stopped and even reversed."Teaching Our Kids "Beautiful"
August 4, 2016
In her Desiring God article "Let's Teach Our Kids 'Beautiful'," Bobbie McKernan shares how we can be oblivious to beauty but notices that children learn to see and savor beauty. McKernan outlines five ways to teach children beauty:- Put before my children what is true and lovely and excellent.
- Parent them like God parents me.
- Teach them and show them how everything points to God.
- Stop relying on someone else to do the majority of this for me.
- Enjoy God in my own life and allow them to witness it.
Read her article here.
Showing Respect for God
July 6, 2016
Bikinis and Modesty
June 22, 2016
In Bikinis and Modesty, John Piper gets to the heart, points us to the Gospel and encourages us in the following: "Cultivate the joyful sense that modesty is beautiful."
Beauty Over Decadence with Dr. Carol Reynolds
June 11, 2016
I saw Dr. Carol Reynolds present Beauty Over Decadence: Winning The War Against Pop Culture. In it she shares some good things about Beauty. Here are some good blurbs from it:
~ from Totto-Chan (The Little Girl at the Window) 1982
There are three Transcendentals: Truth, Goodness and Beauty.
What is Beauty?
- A lifelong search to find it.
- Not the same as prettiness or cuteness.
- Isaiah 52:7 (NIV):
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"
Beauty (Art) is content with meaning, experience and ongoing growth while entertainment is immediate and seeking the "right effect for me." Much of today's entertainment is filled with hate.
Hans Ur von Balthasar:
...
We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name, as if she were the ornament of a bourgeouis past, whether he admits it or not, can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love. ...
When you remove beauty from the human equation, it is going to come back in some other form, even as anti-beauty."
Never show up at a culture war without a culture.
What to do:
- Stop everything to point out Beauty (as you do in teaching Truth and Goodness)
- Have children identify and anaylze the lack of Beauty whenever possible (starting within your own domestic life)
- Saturate your home with beautiful melodies
- Saturate your home with beautiful art
- Refuse to accept ugly soundscapes, visual environments
- Dance
"Old-Fashioned" Modesty
April 11, 2016
Should We Tell Our Little Girls That They're Princesses?
April 8, 2016
Owen Strachan (Associate Professor of Christian Theology and Director of the Center for Theological and Cultural Engagement at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, and the President of The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood), authored Should We Tell Our Little Girls That They're Princesses? In the article, he challenges the "princess culture" not in a way to lessen femininity, but to emphasize true beauty -- beauty expressed virtuously as opposed to narcissistically.Guiding Your Son to Respond Well to Sexual Attraction
April 8, 2016
Focus on the Family's Daniel Huerta writes in "Guiding Your Son to Respond Well to Sexual Attraction" about how to help your son understand the normalcy of attraction, how responding is a choice, how to help him have a proper appreciation of beauty and how to foster him having freedom of control in guarding both his brain and heart.New Barbie Dolls To Come In 'Curvy,' 'Petite,' 'Tall' Sizes | TODAY
January 28, 2016
Facing slumping sales, Mattel is releasing new Barbie dolls that will come in "tall," "petite," and "curvy" models.Fisher Confronts "Appearance-Driven" Hollywood
December 2, 2015
In the article, Carrie Fisher was told to lose weight for Star Wars: The Force Awakens by Julie Mazziotta of PEOPLE, Carrie Fisher confronts how weight and appearance drive the business in Holywood when it comes to women. She advises Daisy Ridley, newcomer to Star Wars, not to be be a "slave" to the "appearance-driven" business in Hollywood, being forced into being a "sex symbol" role like Fisher was. Way to spark rebellion Princess Leia!
Real Not Retouched
May 29, 2015
"How does the glorification of image pressure women? Sarah Dubbeldam is the Founder and Editor In Chief of Darling Magazine, an artistic quarterly publication that seeks to broaden the 'ideals' of beauty in media and speaks real, time-tested wisdom to women. Darling Magazine is broadening into a social media movement with its #RealNotRetouched campaign and call for women to know their true worth" (Source).
Modesty: I Don’t Think it Means What You Think it Means
May 28, 2015
In the article
Modesty: I Don’t Think it Means What You Think it Means (archived), Rachel Held Evans challenges us to rethink modesty across cultures and to take responsibility to not turn modesty into objectification.
Redeeming Dolls
January 28, 2015
These dolls have been rescued and rehabilitated from op-shops and tip shops around Tasmania. These lil fashion dolls have opted for a "tree change", swapping high-maintenance glitz 'n' glamour for down-to-earth style. I hand repaint the dolls faces, mold new shoes, and my Mum sews and knits their clothing.
She can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/treechangedolls.
Related article:
Tassie woman's de-vamped dolls an international hit by Simeon Thomas-Wilson, The Mercury, January 21, 2015.
The Expectations of Man and Woman
November 11, 2014
I'm Enough
October 6, 2014
She was beautiful...
Women Dressing Immodestly
September 5, 2014
IDKU
September 5, 2014
Mark Roth, on his Ain't Complicated blog, wrote IDKU about how a woman in a nude photo looks sad and sold herself short. Further, he tells her that she is meant for better. He shares with her of her value and her need for God. Read the full article.
Beauty Pressure: Onslaught
August 6, 2014
Dove makes another powerful film about the onslaught of beauty pressure thrown at us:
More Beautiful You
July 15, 2014
Five years ago, Jonny Diaz sang the song More Beautiful You. My son told me last night that he wanted it added to his music playlist. This evening, I added it to his playlist and played it for him. It's never too early to teach a boy to appreciate true beauty as so many men just do not know how to have a proper perspective of beauty when it comes to women. May he always have a godly view of beauty.
Colbie Caillat Is Tired Of Being Photoshopped
July 13, 2014
My wife shared a great article Colbie Caillat Is Tired Of Being Photoshopped... So This Is What She Did About It, which includes the following video urging women to be happy with who they are without the make-up, without the "photoshopping" and without taking it all off:
TED Talks: Cameron Russell: Looks aren't everything. Believe me, I'm a model.
February 2014
A letter from a Daddy to his daughter
February 2014
A Proper Perspective of Beauty: The Launch of this Site
January 24, 2014
Our culture has a problem with beauty. We see the problem across the media: television, cinema, Internet and magazines. The self-obsessed, sex-idolizing, celebrity culture fuels the cultural disease that makes women into objects rather than respecting their dignity as human beings created in the image of God. This disease manifests itself in the form of human trafficking and pornography as well as in the self-destructive behaviors associated with bulimia and anorexia. God help us! Whether you are a woman or a man, are you looking to God or to man for your definition of beauty? Consider the videos below:
Fake Beauty
Dove has been exceptional in the cause for embracing true beauty. I applaud them. They have made wonderful productions and strides in this area. One of the first I encountered was Fake Beauty. In this video, it shows the efforts to make an already beautiful woman into a culturally-defined object of "fake beauty". Look at the pictures below:
After
Before
These do not even look like the same woman! Here is the video: YouTube
Nouveau Parfum by Boggie
Csemer Bogi is a Hungarian singer who sings Nouveau Parfum, which translates into "New Perfume." The lyrics and their translation shed an interesting light. She ponders all of the products out there to make her beautiful and exclaims that she is not their product. She is right. Neither she nor any woman should be an object. The music video is another picture of making an already beautiful human being into a culturally-defined object. Here is the video:
Adobe Photoshop's Funniest Commercial Ever
Though this cultural issue is not a joke, it is ridiculous. The video entitled Adobe Photoshop's Funniest Commercial Ever captures just how ridiculous it is. Check out the video:
Dove: Real Beauty Sketches
Again, kudos to Dove for creating the video Real Beauty Sketches. This does not focus exclusively on the external pressures of culture. Rather, this focuses on our (mis)perceptions of our own beauty (influenced by the cultural distortions above):
You're Beautiful
You're beautiful. You are a special individual unlike any other. Don't let the cultural lies define you. You are better than that. You are fearfully and wonderfully made by God.
For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother's womb.
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
~ Psalm 139:13-14
"Many daughters have done nobly,
But you excel them all."
Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,
But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.
~Proverbs 31:30
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise,
dwell on these things.
~Philippians 4:8