Am I Pretty?

In the past couple days I have gone out shopping with my gift cards from Christmas. I was hoping to buy a new pair of pants. When I got to the store I found a style that I liked in a couple colors that looked promising. I found two pairs in a size that is a couple sizes bigger than the number that I currently wear, so I decided to try them on. But when I got to the fitting room I could barely get the pants over my hips! I double checked the size of both pairs of pants and went back to the rack to look at other sizes in the same style. When I found a pair that looked to be the same width as my current pants I was shocked to see that the size number was at least four or five sizes larger than any pants that I currently own.

By this time I was too upset to try on any other clothing, so I ended up walking out after buying a DVD set; with no new pants, and a bit of a blow to my self-image. Afterwards when I was thinking about this situation, it made me think about beauty and what the media’s image of beauty is.

Whether the pants’ mis-sizing is an oddity or the result of outsourcing, it represents what this world expects of the young women today. The media and clothing retailers tell us that to be beautiful, young women are supposed to be very skinny (unhealthy and malnourished), well-dressed (vain), and tanned & clear skinned (chemically washed). But only a hundred years ago the image of beauty was extremely pale and slightly plump, because it meant that this woman was rich and didn’t need to work. But beauty shouldn’t be defined by the current trend, rather by something that will last much longer than skin, make-up, weight, and clothes.

When I got home from the pants fiasco, I knew that I needed some encouragement about beauty and I knew where to turn. I’d like to share the redefinition of beauty with the class…

There are two Bible verses in particular that have helped me redefine what I see as beauty. The first is Ecclesiastes 3:11 that talks about how God will make everything beautiful in its own time. When I’m feeling especially “un-pretty” this verse has reminded me many times that God brings out my beauty when the time is right. (Also, I think that this verse can be related to those of us who are single; meaning that God will make us beautiful to our future spouse when the time is right.)

The second verse is 1 Peter 3:3-4 that says: “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewellery or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” This reminds me that the beauty that counts isn’t rated or gauged by what’s covering this sack of skin and bones, but rather what you are like as a person. It gives me hope that even though I will never look like I belong on the cover of a magazine, that I am still beautiful because God sees me as such. Anyone can have unfading beauty, but next to no one can have the “perfect” (fake) body of a supermodel.

Recently a song has really been sticking out to me by the artist Pink. (*I do not endorse her music or this song, it’s just appropriate for this blog entry. If you take the initiative to look it up on your own, I apologize for the swearing*). This song is called “F***in’ Perfect” and the chorus says “Pretty, pretty please/ Don’t you ever, ever feel/ Like you’re less than/ less than perfect./ Pretty, pretty please/ If you ever, ever feel/ Like you’re nothing/ You are perfect to me.” This is exactly what I hear God saying to me through the verses I mentioned and I pray that each of you will be able to hear this too. Each and every one of us is perfect in His eyes and we don’t have to do anything to be any more beautiful to Him.

So the next time that you look in the mirror and think “If only…” remember that God defines beauty differently. To Him, you are beautiful just the way that you are.

(For the record: I did have a lot more written, but my internet crashed and I lost my entire entry. I was not impressed. This is the best that I could remember of what I had written.)
'Til next time,

-B

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Corrupting the Youth of Today

So I've started to watch a new TV series, which is a little on the creepy and weird side. What drew my attention after watching the first episode (and the reason why I'm writing this post) is that the co-creator and co-writer of this series is Ryan Murphy. Murphy is the think-tank behind Glee.
Before he came up with the singing cash-cow, Mr. Murphy was the creator of Nip/Tuck, a wildly successful show with adult audiences. The thing is, Nip/Tuck was about two plastic surgeons, one of whom was a sex-addicted playboy, while the other was married to a wife with an adultery problem and had a son who was confused about his sexuality. Not as edgy as his new show, American Horror Story (the one that I've begun watching), but still pretty out there.
After Nip/Tuck came Glee, the biggest teen phenomenon since Twilight. It is a teen show that does push boundaries, but it's still a show directed towards teens and tweens, at its base.
Now that Glee has Murphy rolling in some serious dough, he's decided to tackle another show: American Horror Story. This show follows a family as they move into a new home that has had many (and I mean MANY) deaths on the property, most of them the family is unaware of. This house is haunted by their spirits and the family is generally unaware of the fact that these weird-o creeps that keep visiting them are ghosts and not real people; plus there's something creepy (possibly a Frankenstein-ish monster) that's living and killing people in their basement. The family has its share of problems too: the wife had a miscarriage within the last year (and is pregnant again... possibly by the house?), the husband had an affair (and got the girl pregnant), and the teenage daughter is a cutter who is in love with one of the ghosts (without knowing that he's a ghost). I know, I know... weird.
After watching several episodes of this new show and researching Nip/Tuck (as I have never seen even a minute of the show before), it got me to wondering why we let our youth watch Glee? I mean, don't get me wrong... I am a sold out Gleek and the running plot-line of AHS has me at least a little hooked. But, why are we letting children watch (and be influenced by) Glee, when it came out of the same mind that gave you the creepy show about a risk-ey haunted house and the creepy show about plastic surgery and sex?
Some things to take into consideration when thinking about this are things like the fact that our culture is already obsessed with sex. You can't search ANYTHING in Google or other search engines without getting at least one result that's porn. I once heard (although I can't verify this) that one out of every five results from an internet search engine is porn. Allowing youth to watch a show that was created by someone who clearly has no issues with some pretty "kinky" stuff is a little bit of a risk, don't you agree? Even Glee itself is a little out there. Every episode has at least one sexual innuendo and there are at least 7 characters that are either gay, bi-sexual, or have "experimented". And the next episode is entitled "I Kissed A Girl", featuring Katy Perry's song by the same name. The preview of this upcoming episode hints that a few of the girls will share that they have kissed (or something more intense than that) another girl at some point thus far in their lives.
Another thing, is that there is a new obsession forming with the supernatural and the afterlife. As a believer in God, I normally wouldn't mind this because it can spark an interest in Christianity. But, this new obsession isn't about where you're going when you die, nor is it about angels and God. It's about sticking around here postmortem (which is not possible, Biblically speaking), and about monsters and demons. This obsession is very dark and isn't going to turn very many (if any) people to the right side of the coin. If a series like AHS can come out of the same grey matter that brought you Glee, don't you think there will some cross-over (in two ways). One way, is that because the choir show has been so popular with youth, there will likely be some that will start watching AHS just because Murphy's name is attached to it. Another way, is that Murphy may possibly bring some supernatural aspects to Glee; it won't likely be in a big way, probably just little things like the episode last season about God (that basically said that He didn't exist), or things like that.
Again, don't misunderstand me here. I love Glee. It's very entertaining and the music is great. But should we be letting young people be influenced by a man that is clearly disturbed (at least a little)? If this is what comes from of his creative outlets, there's definitely got to be at least some of it floating around his noggin because he believes it in some part.
I'm not trying to offer a solution or say that Ryan Murphy's shows should be banned from young adults. All that I'm trying to do here is state what's been floating around my head since watching a few episodes of AHS, and raise a few questions about how media may be corrupting our youth. I only use this as an example.
'Til next time,
-B

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Hello World!

Hello everyone!
This is my first official posting on this site. The previous two I moved from my old blog (http://thatcrazygirl.weebly.com/). As you can see, I have been very slack on my postings. I will be better about this! I am going to commit (not tentatively this time; this time for sure) to posting a new blog AT LEAST once a month. I know that's not very often for a lot of people, but with all the writing I'm doing for University I find it hard to motivate myself to do recreational writing. Even though I love writing!
Anyway, this will not count as my post for November, so keep your eyes peeled for the latest wacky, insane thought to make its way from my head (a very scary place) onto this site.
'Til next time,
-B

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Nostalgia, my choosen disease.

Okay, first point of conversation; I have failed on the commitment to keep a new post each week. It's been what, a few months? Yea, I failed badly. So here's a tidbit about myself, I'm bad at keeping time commitments (and I suspect the amount of blogs I post once I start school in the fall with go down majorly because of all the papers I'll likely be writing). So let's just say that I'll post when I get the time and the inspiration.

Now, onto the meat of the post. The past couple days I've found myself longing for things and for people and for times from months and years past. Nostalgia. It's my chosen disease, which only afflicts me occasionally. But I had a very bad case of it this past week. And I happen to know that I am not the only human being to suffer from this.

For me, I can sometimes find myself (as was the case this week) looking back on a time when I felt happier and more secure than I do now and automatically I long for it; to be able to go back to it. This past week I was trying to downsize on my "stuff" (as my disease has a side-effect of pack rat tendencies) and unpack/repack/organize some of my stuff still in boxes from my move two months ago, and I came across some old journals and scrapbooks and before I knew it I was caught up in them. I found myself reading a journal entry and thinking "I remember when that happened, I wish I could go back to that day" or looking at a picture and saying to myself "I remember taking that photo, it would be nice to relive that". And the onset of nostalgia began...

Then my brain jumps to related dates and people and things of the such and I just wish I could have it all here, right now. I think of the few people that have heavily influenced my life in a positive way and are no longer "in my life" (because Facebook and Skype don't really count), and I wish I could gather them all here and have them as my neighbors, roommates, and people that I share my life with regularly again. I think of times when I had a set routine that worked for me, that made my happy, and that I flourished under; and I wish I could somehow have that same kind of routine in my life again. I think of different places I've lived (5 provinces, somewhere around 20 "homes"), and wish I could somehow take the best part of each and jam it all together to make this one awesome place.

So all in all, I've looked at each part of my life over the past few years and wanted to bring it all together here and now, where I'm at. But it doesn't work that way. I can't take three completely different worlds and smash them all together. Nothing will come out of that, it just won't work.

So in light of that, I think of what to do with this disease I have (again, referring to nostalgia). Do I deny myself the memories of the past? No, that would be silly; memories are good as long as we don't constantly bring them to the forefront of our minds. Memories are fun to look back at; that's why we journal, and take pictures, and record history. Because a lot of good can come out of the past, like learning from our mistakes and our victories. So then, do I hoard my memories and live in the past? No, again that would be silly. As an example, look at Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite (one of my favorite movies!). He's so caught up in his past, his "glory days", and what could have come out of them, that he's practically incapable of living his life that's right in front of him. I can't do that, I need to have my mind present with me, I need to be able to live the life that God is continually placing in front of me.

So what do I do? Someone once put it this way: Life is like driving a car, the past is in your rearview mirror and the future is the road ahead of you. You can't drive with your eyes glued to your mirror, otherwise you'll crash. You won't be able to effectively drive if you're constantly looking at where you've come from. On the flip side, you need to check where you've been to make sure you're on the right path and to see if anything from behind to coming up. You need to drive concentrating on the road right ahead of you and planning for what is farther ahead, keeping in mind where you've just been. It's all about balance.

Philippians 3:13 gives a good picture of this. I really like the way that The Message translation puts it: "Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward --- to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back." You see, God is beckoning us, calling out to us to move forward. To move with Him into the future and into what He's doing in the here and now, not to what He was doing yesterday.

So, in review, being nostalgic has it's time and place but it can't been constant. We're to "keep moving forward" (a reference to another favorite movie, Meet The Robinsons) and walk into our future, the future God has for us.

That's it for now. 'Til next time,
-B


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My Epic First Post...

So I've been putting off writing my first blog post because I wanted it to be something really epic and awesome, ya know?  But then I realized that my life isn't exciting enough to post anything like that, so my first post is going to be about 4-5 sentences long.

"Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia"... anyone know what this is the fear of? Ironically (epically so...) it's the fear of long words!

That's it. My Epic First Post.

-B

(PS: I'm committing [tentatively] to updating at least once a week... we'll see how long that commitment lasts for. Ha.)
Here is what I wrote originally as the description for my blog... it was so good that I didn't want to delete it. So instead I just edited it into my first entry:
So I've finally bit the bullet and caved in.  I, Becca Whynacht, have a blog.  I've come to notice that, overall,  the western world has this mindset that what we have to say is important and it needs to be heard, NOW.  And, though I'm not quite of that thinking, I do believe that I have a few valid things that I would like to share with whomever would like to listen to me.
Before you start reading my blogs, it may be helpful to know a few things about me as a pretext to why I think what I do:
1) I am a Christ-follower (I will tend to use that word, as the word "Christian" has a very bad connotation attached to it).  I believe in the One True God and try to live my life accordingly, though I don't always succeed in doing so. 
2) I have had my ups and downs in life.  I may only be in my early twenties, but my life experience is beyond that (as I've come to accept and have been told by many others, including my psychologist and counselors).  So although by the world's standards I'm still just a "youngster" with little life experience and a lot to learn (which I agree with, I like learning), I know a fair bit more than the average person my age.
3) People who complain drive me up a wall and therefore I will try not to use this as a place for me to rant or complain about the world at large.  I want this to be a place for me to creatively express my ideas about the world around me.
4) I am an aspiring writer, and therefore may post snippets of my hopeful books on here... (fyi: You copy my work and I will hunt you down and tear your spleen out with a spoon; k?)

Well, I believe that's all... You'll learn more as you read the random thoughts that I record on here.

Happy Reading!
-B...

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