Women and the Glamour of Evil
Right on schedule, at the end of October, I was tackled by the flu. Now if you’ve encountered this virus before, you know that it is a two-week slog through utter misery; the only silver lining was that being bedridden gave me a “pass” from my Mom duties, and I had plenty of time to indulge in binge-watching trashy TV shows.
I have written before (see: “Naked Need”) about my favorite guilty-pleasure program, “Naked and Afraid”, which features two survivalists trained in extreme bushcraft and outdoor skills surviving in the wilderness for weeks at a time with nothing but a knife, a pot, and whatever else they can gather and create from the landscape around them. And they just happen to be naked. (Yes, I feel you silently judging me- but I’m telling you, it’s an amazing show.)
One of the most fascinating parts of “Naked and Afraid” is watching how the survivalists attempt to procure food from their environment. It is always a struggle. Primitive fishing, foraging for plants, and homemade animal traps are inconsistently successful and bring scanty calories, so hunger is an ever-present reality. This hunger is not the kind where our stomach rumbles and we grab a granola bar to hold us over until dinner. It is true hunger, the kind that many of us will never experience, ever in our lifetime. I have seen survivalists hunt under logs for fat-rich grubs, scavenge maggot-ridden animal carcasses for meat that is still edible, and dig (and eat) undigested seeds out of animal dung. These are not the actions of someone that is hungry, but of someone that is actually starving. The survivalists are truly desperate for food, and by the end of their challenge many of the show’s contestants have lost upwards of 30-60 pounds from subsisting at such a profound calorie deficit.
During my recent flu-addled “Naked and Afraid” binge, I realized that it is only towards the end of the challenges, after weeks and weeks of literal starvation, that the women’s naked bodies begin to look, to my mind, like what a woman’s body “should” look like. Not because I am catty and shallow, but because I, like everybody else, have been so indoctrinated with the idea that emaciation is a feminine ideal; and this notion has gained such a foothold in me that a sickly, starving woman looks exactly how I wish I could look.
This appalling revelation reminded me of a particular line in the Renewal of Baptismal Promises, when the people of God swear to “reject the glamour of evil”. Evil, which should appear to us as dangerous and ugly, so often manages to seduce our senses, fooling us into coveting a darkness that is disguised as beauty. And what a dark trick indeed, that what we have come to revere as glamorous and desirable in a woman’s body are signs of starvation and death.
In John 10:10, Jesus says, “I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” This is his desire for us, his brothers and sisters, and yet it is all the marks of an abundant life that we seek to erase from women’s bodies: the wrinkles that show we have lived long and smiled often; the stretch marks that reveal how we grew from little girls into young women; the poochy mom bellies that prove we were blessed with fertility; the thighs that touch in the middle because we have celebrated and feasted. These are the hallmarks of a life fully and abundantly lived, and we shame women for possessing them.
I suspect, though, that when we enter the Heavenly kingdom, all of the physical “flaws” that tell the story of women’s lives will be welcomed on our glorified bodies. Jesus’ own resurrected body, far from appearing perfect, actually retained the wounds of the crucifixion (John 20:20-27), and they served as a banner of how he’d lived his earthly life, a life defined by love and sacrifice. So perhaps in Heaven, women’s grey hair, soft tummies, and cellulite will not be contrary to the perfection of their glorified bodies, but instead will be an integral part of what makes them glorious, because such signs are manifestations of the abundant life given to us by Christ. Maybe to Heavenly eyes, feminine beauty will look like the squishy, gritty, full reality of life, and not the frail and false glamour of death.
As we approach Thanksgiving—a stressful time for many women because it involves fat and calories galore—I will try to keep this in my heart, remembering that Jesus desires to give me life, and life abundantly. Maybe true beauty lies in gratefully receiving this gift; and not in skimping on the gravy.
