only skin-deep

My mother just sent me this beautiful article by Laurel Rae Mathewson:

The year before I was a senior in high school, I went on an exchange to France. I got skinny. When I returned to America, I felt great, looked great, and received high praise. That post-France pinnacle of svelteness is where my troubles with food began in earnest. Any more pounds represented failure, a deviation from "my best self." I began eating emotionally. I gained 10 pounds.

At New Year's I decided to get serious about getting back to the "right" size. In good-student fashion, I read reputable books and magazines and followed all the rules. I was the ideal dieter. I ran and lifted weights. Mathematical tricks of weight-loss became second nature: The calories in an apple (small, medium, or large); which foods satisfy most for the fewest calories (pancakes are great for this). I steadily lost 1.5 pounds a week for eight weeks and was in better shape than ever. My dieting was officially healthy, nutritionally balanced, and utterly obsessive.

During winter quarter I reached the nadir of my journey with food and with God. I felt inadequate and disgusting. I desperately wanted God's help in ending this vicious cycle, but God never seemed to fully deliver. When I was stuffed, bloated, and incapacitated from a binge, I would pray, weeping: Take this from me. Help me. I don't want to be like this. I believed salvation would come from obeying the legalistic idol of strict self-control and self-improvement that I thought God endorsed. As I wrote in my journal:

God did not create me to consume my time worrying about calories. I know how sick it is ... so why don't I stop? Why do I create my own problems? ... Am I afraid of perfect happiness? … Why else would I sabotage all the gifts that I've been given, keep myself from thriving? … My thoughts disturb and distract me in lecture, in church, in conversation. … I count every calorie that goes into my mouth; yet it doesn't stop me from eating an entire package of cookie dough.

Perfect happiness. I thought it was mine for the making—and that God expected nothing less.

Food is a gift from God to be enjoyed, especially with others, creating communion and fellowship. It's not meant to be an idol. Like sex, like work, like material comfort, if we seek to satisfy the hunger of our souls with food alone, we will remain empty. I used food to cope with the spiritual void of an "estrangement" from God, created by my own conviction that I could perfect myself, given enough determination and discipline. Disordered eating was my symptom of accepting neither grace nor my need for it.

Read the rest of the article here. It's so good, I wanted to copy and paste the whole thing, but I felt like that may be slightly unethical (proper internet/blogging citation procedure is still slightly shrouded in mystery to me.) The authoress brings up beautiful points about the struggles of body image, from the unique perspective of a woman of Faith.

One of my favorite lines from her article is: "I was created for a higher purpose than a size 6." It's so true. The flesh is weak-it's easier to become a size 6 than to become a person filled with grace. And in a culture that's obsessed with externals, it's so easy to loose sight of the fact that beauty is not only skin-deep. Beauty is radiated through a smile, through loving eyes, through a kind voice and a listening ear. Not that the happiest girls are the most beautiful girls, but that the most beautiful girls are the happiest girls.

"For beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; for beautiful eyes, look for the good in others. And for poise, walk in the knowledge that you are never alone." --Audrey Hepburn

Shiny

May I have a drumroll and a fanfare, s'il vous plait?

Introducing the new and incredibly improved version of our blog, complete with brand-spanking-new title. Life (and posting) at the blog-formerly-known-as-Garden-of-Violets was lagging just a wee bit, so we decided to spruce it up, and recommit to our goal of examining and discussing the meaning of Catholic womanhood in the twenty-first century. Please bear with us as we continue to tweak and polish during the next week or two. I promise an explanation of the title will be posted shortly. *cough, cough* Desdemona *cough, cough*

Saint of the Day

Here is a charitable saint. His name is St. Thomas of Villanova. He is the saint of the day on AmericanCatholic.org. Sadly, he would be chided or ridiculed in our day as well. However, it is good to see an example of someone who was brave enough to step outside the social norms. On my campus we have started nightly Rosary walks for the conversion of campus. It is an exciting adventure(walking with 20-somethings is also alot faster than a Rosary walk at a church with all ages). Let us pray for the converstion of the world.

Starting Over

The new school year has begun, at least for me, and as we all know, the start of anything is an excuse to wipe the slate clean, conveniently forget any mistakes made last year, and work on implementing the good habits that we somehow never got around to forming the previous semester. Take Daily Mass, for instance. Indisputably a great good for the soul, yes? And yet how often did I excuse myself from that half-hour in the chapel with a list of chores and homework that absolutely-had-to-be-done-right-this-very-instant-and-couldn't-wait-even-two-seconds? The answer: waaaaay too often.

But that's okay because, like I said, it's a new semester, my very first as shiny upperclassman. After two years of college, I've made a fair amount of mistakes and poor choices (nota bene: coffee only takes you so far during finals week), and this semester I'd like to brush up my habits and straighten out my schedule, even if it's only in little ways, like getting to bed before midnight, and not wasting my entire weekend watching movies. I know my Mom's told me this a hundred times, but life, especially college life, really is way easier when you have a plan for balancing classes, exercise, spiritual life, etc., and you stick to it. Eventually, the little and not-so-little choices made every day add up into habits firmly cemented in our lives. A bag of Doritos is not a meal sufficient unto itself, and, yes, you will regret it later. Trust me. Even if it means getting up ten minutes earlier, morning prayer really sets the tone for your day, and maybe with a little heavenly perspective, getting shampoo all over your school books won't seem like quite such a tragedy. You may even recognize that it's sort of funny.