What is Beauty

Yesterday I attended a beautiful lunch and style show at my daughter's Fashion Boutique where she is a new manager. This Boutique is one of a kind and is called Bella Mia, located in Champaign, Illinois. The show was stunning with lovely models and rich high fashion; so delightful to look at and admire. It brought to mind some thoughts.
My mother used to say, "People will always treat you the way you look and dress...that first impressions are crutial." My mother was quite stylish in her dress and manner but I don't think this was the essence of what she wanted to convey to me. Mother meant that one should always look "put together," (not necessarily fashionable), neat, and dressed in presentable clothes that fit well. She particularly wanted me to make sure that my children looked nice when they went out with clean combed hair, washed faces and clean outfits.
"Your children will benefit from the positive affirmations they get, even from strangers (when babies) when people treat them as well as they look, and she was right....babies and children soak up positive messages like a sponge. The opposite is also true; children instantly sense when negative messages are coming their way. And like it or not, people do react positivly or negatively according to what they see.
The other message I received around the idea of beauty was from my Dad.
"Beauty is only skin deep," he would say..."the rest is up to you."
He would often suggest to his five daughters that women of great beauty in our society were at risk of never being anything else. Women especially have been highly idolized for nothing more than looking fabulous. This is a danger my father would say; the danger of not becoming anything of any worth or consequence. Of course, my father was an intellectual who highly prized education above all else, and was always promoting the value of this. I was blessed by his ferver and determination to give the same love of learning to all of his children. My mother valued this as well but, on ocassion, when the whole family was together, seven children and their offsprings, she would look around the room and say, "Aren't we all just so good looking." I was doubley blessed, I guess.

What Do Workers Have to Do With It?

Today I thought about all the people that are in place to serve me and keep my life going. How often I forget about the chain of laborers that work behind the scenes to make my life easier, and manageable. Take for example, the simple act of going to the grocery store to buy bananas. Where did these bananas come from? Who grew them? Were they paid a living wage (wherever they were) to grow them? And how did they end up in MY grocery store? How were they transported? Airplane, and then truck, train???? How many people were involved in that step? Were they paid enough money for their efforts? And who unboxed them and put them out for display after checking them to see that they were o.k. to sell? Were they paid well enough? And the checkout person, and baggers; how about them? I wonder; if I added up the total cost of getting that one bunch of bananas to me, what would it be? Today, in America, we are challenged with many problems. One of those problems is people who are not getting enough money to live well enough. There are no easy solutions, and everyone these days has a different opinion about what to do. I do not have a solution either. I just want us not to forget that many of these people are the very ones that serve us and help keep our lives going. This is not a new idea, and actually, I thought about it after reading an excerpt from a quite famous author who I now cannot remember (perhaps Yeats) who said,
"The woollen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as course and rough as it may appear, is the product of the joint labour of a multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others must all join different arts in order to complete even this homely production......without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided;, even according to what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated.

Chilean Miners Rescue

It is rare indeed when the world comes together to celebrate something extrodinary. I believe that many tears were shed around the globe as the last Chilean miner emerged from the tiny man-made capsule that brought him, the last of 33 miners, 700 meters underground (half mile, I think) for 68 days, to the terra firma of his homeland. There are many heros surrounding this story from the men themselves who kept each other going and shared their meger rations, to the rescuers who NEVER gave up in spite of discouraging results along the way. (It took 17 days to even locate the miners.)
What makes a HERO really? One who is not afraid to do the hard, brave thing, or do the thing that is right? Just the opposite, really. A hero is a person who IS afraid, but does the hard, brave, right thing anyway. I feel that there is such a dirth of heros in our world today. Do you feel the same? Of course, the men and women defending our country every day are heros; they are the reason we live in freedom. But who else? Sadly, I think, most potential heros of today have gone the way of big money or political advantage. Can our country survive without real, genuine heros? I don't think so. Bill Gates, and his wife Melinda are examples, I think, of what one person, persons can heroically do to make the world better. This country needs more heros like them, me included, which makes me ponder here at my desk what I might do in my very small speck of the world to be hero-like. What can I do? Hmmmmm.