What is beauty?

Beauty.

What is it?

I found this cheap necklace at Claires when I was about twelve and even though it leaves a green ring around my neck every time I wear it, I cannot toss it out because I fell in love with its definition of beauty:

"The quality present in a person or thing that gives intense pleasure to the mind."

Intense pleasure to the mind. Not the eye. I love that.

Because beauty cannot be put into a box. It is embodied... not just a body. 

Being beautiful is all about playing up and becoming more of what YOU already are...

It is something altogether different from being "pretty."

Pretty is all about playing up and becoming more of what they tell you that you should be, what is trendy. "They" being the magazines, music videos, celebs, etc. in society who tell you how to look.

 

But often that image they present is unattainable and distorted.  

They. Limit. Beauty.

But, I believe, every single person is beautiful. Truly.

I realized this last year at a retreat where we sang "You're Beautiful" by Phil Wickham over and over again.

The lyrics talk about how nature like the stars and sunrise all proclaim to God: "you're beautiful." And then it hit me that all of God's creation declares that He is beautiful, including people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this:

Colossians 1:16 says

for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see--such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.

Genesis 1:27 talks about how people are made in God's image... How incredibly offensive that must be for us to call His creation, in particular one of his people that carry His image, anything less than beautiful.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time.

Granted, there are times like now when I have a mountain range of zits on my face, I'm in need of a haircut and my finger nail polish is chipped that I feel like today may not be my "own time" ;) BUTTTTTTT, all in all, God made each and every one of us beautiful.

And we should rest in that. On good days... and bad days.

He does.

Even when we/others don't. 

Beauty is so much bigger and fuller and deeper than being "merely pretty:"

I hope instead of trying to fulfill society's limited scope of "pretty," that you aim to own what God gave you - and embrace it because...

So today - and everyday - I hope you know that you are

Leaving My Mark - an awkward way to start my day

I was raised not to air my dirty laundry in public BUT this story was just too funny not to share. However, I feel the need to provide fair warning that this blogpost involves a story about my underwear so if you find that offensive or over-sharing then don't read any further.

For the rest of you who are hooked, here is an awkward little life update on how I started my day ;)
 
(First, a little background info)


I recently bought several new pairs of panties because there was an irresistible deal the last time I went to the mall. That seems innocent enough BUT the problem is I don't own a washer or dryer. As a result, my laundry is done infrequently and in large loads.

I was not about to waste one of my rare opportunities to do laundry by just washing panties. So, instead, I washed them with warm water and soap in the sink in my bathroom to avoid them bleeding their color all over the rest of my clothes and staining them whenever I did do laundry next.

(K, enter the awkwardness of this morning)

NOTE TO SELF/ALL OF YOU: Apparently, washing new panties in the sink does NOT prevent their color from bleeding.

They can still stain your clothes. And also your toilet seat. And even you.

Yes.

I came back from a run this morning and went to the bathroom before I hopped in the shower. Although, I wasn't so quick to hop in the shower because when I finished peeing, I noticed that my toilet seat was black.

And that black spot was in the shape of my rear-end.

Yes, I left my mark in the form of a black butt print on my toilet seat. Real Life.

I was so confused and then I realized that my underwear had stained ME!?! Literally, my body. My entire rear-end looked like a giant bruise from where the black dye of my new panties had left its remnants in my skin... all I can guess is that maybe sweating while running made that happen...?

BUT (butt?), how unfortunate.

My roomies and any visitors to our house would see the mark which revealed more than I cared to share with the world about how big my booty was. [One of my roomies asked if I would take a picture for this post. Haha, funny joke. No.]

Even though I was already behind schedule from my run, I thought I had to clean this up... erase this embarrassing mark before my roomies woke up. With my black butt print staring up from our white toilet seat, I set into my cleaning mode.

I tried to wipe it off with warm soap and water. That was a fail.

Then I thought, oh maybe face wash would do the trick. Nope.

Toner? I'm afraid not.

At this point, I'm getting a little alarmed.

I figured I would just go for the big guns and ran to the cleaning cabinet to get our Clorox spray assuming that surely that would clear it right up.

Even. That. Did. Not. Work.

Flustered, but now 20 minutes behind schedule, I just left it saying a prayer that the steam from my hot shower might help...

Then, in the shower, I had to tend to my rear-end.

I scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed.

I used a washrag and a loofah.... even a pumice stone meant for your feet.

I tried shampoo, facewash, exfoliating body wash, bar soap.

Alllllllllllllll to no avail.

With my rear-end rubbed raw, I finally gave up and got out of the shower to tackle the toilet seat.

Sadly, it was still as dark as the second I saw it.

And then, I just had to laugh. I mean, really, what else could I do?

By this time, my roomies were up so I shared the story with them and we all laughed.

Sarah Grace had struck again. I don't know how I get into these situations but I do.

We determined that I now have the cleanest butt in town. As for our toilet seat... that is another story.

Liberation Week - Shining light on the injustice of human trafficking

This is next week. It all kicks off tomorrow, in fact!?!

This is also the reason I haven't posted in forever.

I have been consumed by planning this and learning more about the issue of human trafficking and praying for this and the people trapped in modern day slavery. All 27 million of them.

Y'all may have seen my post about Passion Conference and how it affected me back in January. At that conference and afterward, I could not erase the link between spiritual freedom and physical freedom. Over and over again since then, I've seen scripture focusing on freedom. And, then, of course, there was this public declaration from Jesus himself:

¹⁷ and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he [Jesus] found the place where it is written:    

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
   because he has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
   and recovery of sight for the blind,
   to set the oppressed free"

                                   - Luke 4:17-18

Passion and scripture like this also affected my boss, some BCMers and another group of students I later connected with called the Justice Team.

Over the last month or two, we planned and prayed to put together the following for the College of Charleston campus and greater Charleston community to shine light on the injustice of human trafficking:

LIBERATION WEEK

• Monday - interactive art on campus
• Tuesday - "Sex & Money" documentary at 7pm in the Education Center, room 116
• Wednesday - Nubawi Nute, a speaker from Myanmar sharing a Christian perspective of her work at the border of Burma to fight human trafficking and also telling of the children's home she has started; 7pm in the Education building (corner of Wentworth and St. Phillip) in the Alumni room
• Thursday - PORNversation, a conversation on porn, the objectification of women and the tie to human traffficking, 8pm in the Alumni Room
• Friday - table-ing in Cougar Mall from 10-3
• Saturday - FREEDOM DAY, 2-5pm in Physicians Auditorium 

Freedom Day is our main event and it includes the following:

• What is it? - Not For Sale representative to discuss the global issue of human trafficking
• Where is it? Even Here - A21 Carolinas representative to discuss how this affects our own area
• How it Affects You - Slavery Footprint activity 
• What YOU Can Do to Stop It - "How to Take Action" panel of students and an ICE agent 
• Closing and donation 

In addition, we'll have survivors' stories being read and items created by survivors for sale (provided by The Jubilee Market and The Butterfly Project) as well as information on organizations where you can volunteer or donate to help bring an end to human trafficking.

As they said at Passion,

Indifference is NOT an option. 

You can see why after reading these statistics from A21 Carolinas: 

We need to shrink these numbers until not a single person is being SOLD in our world today. 

People are NOT property. 

Spread the word about Liberation Week. 

Come out. Donate. Liberate. 

A Little Ring is a Little Thing... with BIG Social Assumptions: My fake fiance and facebook's reaction

Here it is, the picture that started this:

You see, a little ring is a little thing but it has very big social assumptions. And that bit of bling absolutely BLEW up my facebook, which led to this blogpost.

Last weekend I was with my redneck family in Arkansas and that always makes for fun and interesting times, like this...

So we were at a bar - which probably doesn't surprise you - but it wasn't a redneck, rowdy place like you might picture. We were keepin' it classy at a wine bar called 

And after one too many glasses, my redneck family came up with an idea - aka my fake fiance.

You see, "what had happened was".... quite innocent at first.

My aunt recently had her 25th wedding anniversary and upgraded her engagement ring to this:

2.5 carats of pure sparkly goodness.

Naturally, all the ladies wanted to try it on. But it was kinda like Cinderella and the glass slipper: it didn't fit until...

I tried it on. And, voila, it fit just perfectly. Unfortunately,  unlike Cinderella, I wasn't able to keep it and it didn't come with a prince :/

Not a real one anyways. 

Since the ring fit, my redneck family took a picture. Then, my uncle suggested/peer pressured me to put the picture up on facebook.

My response: "Do you know the uproar that would cause!?!"

BUT THEN... the wheels started turning...

What would happen?

They thought it would be funny.

I thought it would be interesting - just what kinda reaction would I get?

So there began the experiment.

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 Within a minute, I had my first response: "Excuse me what!?!"

And then, the FIRST PERSON to like it - I am not kidding - was my pastor at my homechurch.

He gets on facebook like all of once-a-month. Mind you, my daddy was not on this trip and it was Saturday night. Therefore, the next morning I feared my daddy would hear "congratulations" at church and not have the slightest clue about what I had gotten into... While my relatives thought this was just hilarious, a bit of fear overtook the funniness for me at that point as I was thinking my whole church and then hometown would hear of my "engagement" because news travels fast in small-town-South-Carolina :/

And it seems news travels even faster on facebook.

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Within an hour I had about 25 "likes" and 20 or so comments. When all was said and done, it got up to 35 "likes" and almost 30 comments.


Because of one little ring... and a big social assumption.


Some of my favorite comments were:

"Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do!!!!!! ;)"

"Danggg somebody put a ring on you haha"

And this one from my uncle who was adding fuel to the facebook fire:

"Sarah, I'm so happy for you two... Congrats!"

People were:

• congratulating me
• offering to plan my wedding
• feeling left out because I had not told them about "the guy" sooner
• a little suspicious/doubtful and wanted some details

Once I got over the itty bitty sting of people's disbelief at my having "found a man", some of my favorites from the suspicious people were:

"gasp! for real? :D Congratulations!"

"whaaat is going on?! obviously we haven't hung out in a long time!"

"omg i almost just fainted."

 And my personal favorite:

"Color me cynical, but I somehow don't believe this fish decided it needs a bicycle yet."

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But, I myself was shocked that everyone fell for the photo. 

So many of my friends accepted one facebook photo as truth. 

One minute's worth of minimal facebook stalking would uncover that:

1. I was not even listed as "in a relationship" much less "engaged to" anyone
2. I didn't have oodles of couple pictures for my profile picture... not even one
3. My other photos didn't document me with the same guy over and over... I guess my friends thought I fell in love-at-first-sight instead of dating someone for an extended amount of time???
4. And then there was this, a picture posted shortly after the ring pic... I'm nowhere near a man, and there isn't one my age in the picture. NOTE for friends/facebook stalkers in the future: I will show off the man more than the ring ;)

I guess my friends are just not as adept at facebook stalking as I thought they would be...? 

Anyways, the next morning I came clean and commented on the picture, admitting that it was not announcing a new engagement:

"Hahahaha! Thanks for all the comments; didnt mean to make yall feel outta the loop.

"But what happens in Arkansas stays in Arkansas ;) JUST KIDDING!!!

"I did not get engaged but I did just do a lil experiment. Blogpost coming soon - and hopefully a 2.5 carat ring like that too ;)"

But that has not been the end of it.

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I cannot tell you the amount of people who have asked me or my close friends "Is there something you forgot to tell me?" or "Is Sarah really engaged?"

And it wasn't just my friends or facebook friends.

No. That one picture - that social assumption - that facebook fire - spread to co-workers, former professors, old Sunday school teachers, distant relatives, loose acquaintances.... even this random encounter:

I was at home for a few days over spring break and in a local store. I saw a lady staring  me down as I passed her in the aisle and when she followed me into the next aisle, she asked: "You're that girl from facebook, the one with the ring picture, right?"

No lie.

Blushing a bit, I owned up to it and said, "Yep, that's me." Turns out she is my facebook friend but I cannot even remember why; she owns another store in town and I think I liked her facebook page to try and win a giveaway or something like that. I definitely do not know her well at all. BUT that bling was bright enough to catch her eye and even she took note of it long enough to recognize me days later in passing. Wow.

One. Little. Ring.

Who knew it could make that big of an impact.

They always say a picture is worth a thousand words... but they never said if those words were fact or fiction ;)

They also say, never to assume because when you do, you make an a$$ out of me and you.

Seems that is quite the case. My facebook friends fell for my photo of a fake engagement but now I'm pretty sure I'm going to deal with explaining it for quite some time ;)

Your Eyes May be Too Sexy... in Saudi Arabia

It is often said that eyes are the window to the soul.

What happened if we had to hide them - our eyes, our souls, our selves?

Well, women in Saudi Arabia may have to.

Late last year, there was a push for women with "tempting eyes" to cover them.

In case you don't know, they already have nearly every other part of themselves covered. A young Saudi woman describes the clothing of Saudi women in this blogpost.

The blogger describes the different pieces of clothing (the abaya and the niqab) and their history (in relation to religion but also class) and the variations (black, earth tones, etc.) available for Saudi women.

She also discusses the reasoning for them originally and today: "to protect women from acts of disrespect."

Funny how that is done by hiding the women rather than educating or reprimanding the men...?

The Washington Post also discusses the issue of women and their freedom in relation to what they wear and how that affects their job and marriage options. That article even discusses whether women can have bangs or wear makeup!?!

As I sit here blogging, I am wearing makeup and rockin bangs with my face, arms and ankles fully exposed. Scandalous? Apparently it would be in Saudi Arabia.

But exposing your eyes scandalous? What is left to cover up? Are they just going to erase women from public life... just hold them captives in their own home???

The group that has the say so for whether that will happen and if women's eyes will in fact be covered up is the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. This article details what the committee has done and what they want to do regarding women's tempting eyes:

The CPVPV is Saudi’s Sharia, Islamic law, executive arm and was founded in 1940 to ensure Islamic laws are not broken in public, yet over the years, the committee has been largely criticized over its human rights violations.

In 2002, the committee refused to let female students out of their burning schools in Mecca for “not wearing the proper head cover,” which contributed to a large number of dead.

15 young girls died in the fire and dozens more were injured. The CPVPV men banned the firemen and policemen from accessing the girls as “it is not okay for girls to be seen without their full Islamic dress in front of strangers.”

Crazy.

BUT, that is their culture and religion and just because I don't want that, doesn't meant that they don't.

That is why I appreciated this approach from the Nude Revolutionary Blogger: she pushed not for doing away with their culture BUT to do away with the gender inequality. She called not for women to no longer wear the headscarf but for "men in the country to wear the headscarf in solidarity with women."

And what was the reaction...? She had to shut her page down because of so many complaints and threats. It seems the need to cover women's bodies is less about purity and more about power - power of men over women. 

I can't find anywhere listing the law as in effect so hopefully it never came to fruition. But still, the thought that this was/is an option to oppress women and literally hide them, their eyes, their souls, their selves is frightening.

Not to mention, how would they determine who had tempting eyes??? Yet another thing for women to feel insecure about - those with their eyes exposed in public have that freedom which is good but they would have that freedom with the knowledge that their eyes are ugly/unseductive.

Then, lets say they do have the pretty/seductive eyes, what do they do when their eyes are covered? How do they see? How do others recognize them? This comic presented the problem in a clever way:

Moral of the story: we are soooooooooooo lucky here to have all the freedoms we take for granted every day... even what we wear.

Also, we should pay attention to women around the world who don't have those freedoms. And we should do something about it... Here is the Nude Revolutionary's blog if you want to check it out!

Why Don't We PLAY More?

The art of play seems to fade with age.

I wish it wouldn't.

Babysitting I've noticed how kids don't need much to play.

Sure they have elaborate multi-piece, battery-requiring, noise-making, moving toys BUT those aren't their favorite toys. They may play with them for a phase until the newness wears off.

Then it seems they return to the classics like their building blocks, hot wheels, barbies, etc.

Better yet is when they don't even use real "toys" but instead...
Turn pots and pans into a drum set.
Or sticks in the yard into toy swords.
Or their blanket becomes a cape draped over their shoulders or a fort draped over the living room furniture.
Or a string of their mom's pearls transforms them into a runway model.
Or a cardboard box suddenly becomes a ship sailing the seven seas.

Imagination.

It's a beautiful thing.

And it seems to fade along with playing as we age.

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Thank God for my job.

It is keeping my imagination and play alive :) 

Though I am a college graduate, I am not stuffed in a suit in a cubicle in the grown-up world of all work and no play.

Instead, this is my job: http://youtu.be/TMs0faqeb5U 

And a short while later note the destruction in the middle of the floor and how our bunkers and shields had expanded: http://youtu.be/CRGfEOqq6AM

How did this happen?

Perhaps it was simply because it was well after midnight and we did have students there from the local military college so they are actually trained for war. But, mostly, I think it was just that mixed with imagination. And fun.

We all started PLAYING.

One minute we were sitting around chatting and the next someone discovered the box of foam darts that were freebies at the conference we were attending. Before we knew it, tables were overturned and sides had been chosen and attacks had started.

It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

There is something fun, no doubt, about a board game or sports BUT it just isn't the same as playing with your imagination.

Where there are no rules.
No structure.
No limits.

You just dream up whatever you want.

And it is contagious.

The dart war started with just a handful of us but by the end everyone in the room had joined in.

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The same thing happened last night.

Not a dart war but pure, unplanned play. 

Some students and I were hanging out after an event and there was a lot of leftover Conversation Candy Sweethearts from Valentine's day.

Let's be real, no one really eats those anyways, right? They're kinda like colored chalk?

BUT, you do eat them if they become part of a game where they are tossed into your mouth... which is precisely what we did.

It was a relatively subdued activity at first with just a few guys trying to toss them and catch them in their mouth. However, soon they started throwing them faster or farther or to different people.

Or after they'd already fallen on the ground. Then there was synchronized throwing and catching. There was a monkey in the middle of sorts where people popped in on a toss intercepting someone else's candy heart.

Soon, everyone became involved. And laughed. And smiled. Played. Had fun.

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I hope that wherever you are - in college, in the "real world," with kids of your own, whatever - that you don't get stuck being too serious. 

I hope you stoke your imagination and play a little everyday. 

Life's too short to be too serious. 

And playing is priceless ;) 

Southern Belle Feminist Takin' the Capitol.... tryin' out politics

On Tuesday, February 24th, I headed to the capitol... of South Carolina to shake things up.

It was a start.

And so empowering.

About 50 of us - mostly women  but a few guys as well - showed up bright and early at the State House to lobby against human trafficking.

You may remember my post explaining when Passion put it on my heart. But I didn't just want my heart to be heavy and sink - along with the urgency I felt to "do something now" as they had encouraged all of us in attendance while we were in Atlanta.

Fortunately, this perfect opportunity to maintain the pull on my heart and my urgency for action presented itself through some email correspondence with a former professor of mine. She welcomed me and another friend from Passion to tag along with her to lobby in Columbia.

I was slightly intimidated because I had never done this before.

But, ANYONE can do it.

Polaris project was there to give us a bit of training but most of it was simply us - strength in numbers - just going and sharing our thoughts with our congress people.

Some striking things the Polaris organizers and some SC lawyers shared with us were:

• People - especially in South Carolina - seem to think that slavery is a thing of the past when everyone lived in plantations. False. It is alive and flourishing today with more slaves on the planet RIGHT now than in ALL of human history. 
• South Carolina is a particularly ideal area for traffickers because we have so many highways, water access points AND (something I'd never thought of) privately owned planes and boats that utilized by traffickers because they are not as regulated as larger vessels where most authorities assume people are smuggled. 
• People tend to think this is just a problem for foreigners who just happen to be in our country. Ok. A) So what. They are still people and deserve to be fought for... this is a humanity issue, not an American or Indian or Thailand or (insert any country's name here) issue. And, B) This problem is affecting Americans. Polaris estimates that as many as (and probably more than) 100,000 native-born children are trafficked within our borders and most between the ages of 11 and 14. Vulnerable children on the streets or in broken homes and sometimes from just next door in a white, wealthy, suburban home. 

A poster we had that day

 

After sharing with our congressmen or their staff  in their offices as well as anyone looking important that we passed in the statehouse/elevator/outside/etc. (which I promise we tried to do in the least annoying way possible but some things are worth nagging over!), we headed to a press conference.

After that, we simply sat on the steps of the State House reading victims' stories. It was so powerful.

And we were all given a piece of purple duct tape to wear on our wrist as a visible reminder and a conversation starter for people held in "chains" whether metal or manipulation. However, one woman made quite a statement by walking around the grounds wearing a piece of that duct tape over her mouth, representing the silence of the victims that go unnoticed by so many of us.

The most exciting thing?

Before we left that afternoon, we heard that the bill (H3757) which had been basically stagnant since it was introduced almost a year previously, was pushed through the house and onto the senate floor!?!

Our voice was heard.
The victim's stories, names, and pain were heard.
Action was taken.
Change was made.

Now the fight is by no means over. However, SC was previously in the bottom 9 of the states to have legislation on this issue and if this is fully voted in, we will be one of the most comprehensive states in the nation.

So now we've got to raise our voices and the victims' voices to the nation.
Join me.
To raise YOUR voice, reach out to your own congressperson: http://www.fyi.legis.state.us/

And, maybe I'll head to THE capital next... Anyone wanna join me in DC?

Pretty legit with all the flags and everything right??? There was an open podium so we tried it out ;)

Help end human trafficking.