I accept ugly
October 3rd, 2005 by Andy
The fam and I went apple picking this weekend. Seeing all the wasted fruit and slightly “ugly” apples that don’t get picked got me thinking. Walk around an apple orchard this time of year and you’ll see thousands of apples lying on the ground or left on the tree because they had a spot or two. Something in us doesn’t want to put these ‘imperfect’ chaps in our bag. It reminded me of a rant that I came across a while back:
I accept that fruit and vegetables come in all shapes and sizes. Like life, it takes all sorts. I accept apples that don’t have perfect skin. (Remember being a teenager?) I also accept scary looking carrots, over-sized swedes and onions so ugly they make your eyes water. I accept blemishes on cauliflower leaves especially as we don’t eat that bit anyway. I accept rhubarbs that are taller than corporate policy. I accept potatoes come from the ground. I have also come to terms with the fact they may well have dirt on as a result. And as for turnips, well, they were never meant to be one of nature’s good-lookers. You see, nature grew them all. Nature gave them the OK. And, this is the important bit, nature gave these ugly critters as much goodness as the pretty ones. These are shallow times, I know. Even so, to throw away 20-30% of the food we grow on the grounds that it’s not pretty enough, seems like we have lost the garden plot. You say your customers demand it this way, well, just so you know, this one doesn’t. By A Customer that accepts ugly
Last night our little community talked about the potential that often lies dormant inside each one of us. Someone talked about how she wanted our community to be a place that truly celebrated gifts and creation of all kinds. But, I wonder, if it’s this hard to accept apples that don’t look perfect, how much harder will we have to work to accept others? Will we truly be a place that accepts ‘ugly’? Will we see others through the eyes of Jesus and realize that all our ugliness is cast on him? Will we see that beneath what the world sees and declares ugly is a soul dearly loved by God. Listen closely, can you hear God declaring over all creation, “I ACCEPT UGLY! And not only that, I make what was once ugly into something beautiful.”
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The pastor in me wants to respond to your question with a resound, “YES!” Of course we can accept each other — ugly and all. But then I like around me and wonder.
This morning I was watching the Today show while I ate my Corn Pops and the segment I caught was about how obese women in America are being discriminated against in the workplace. The statistic they threw out was that something like 16% of bosses admitted that they wouldn’t hire an obese women no matter the circumstances.
In a world that is obsessed with body image — that doesn’t really even care whether the soul is ugly or not, because the soul is irrelevant — accepting others is one of the hardest things to do.
I wonder if the only way we can truly love and accept each other, blemishes and all, is if we confront our own ugliness and then realize that God has picked us up off the ground when others have left us behind.
But this too is agonizing difficult when we have become experts at self-deception.
I want to believe that God is making me into something beautiful. Maybe I need others to help me believe it. Maybe that’s one of the primary roles of a community: to point out to each other the ways in which we see God making us beautiful.
Comment by Chris — October 4, 2005 @ 9:34 am
I agree with you Chris. We probably won’t be very good at this seeing as how it is against everything our culture tells us. But I can imagine that if we strive for a vulnerable honest community, we can get to know eachother beyond face value, to the point where we can see the beauty of eachother’s souls.
Yet, for me, I’m not so sure I know what that vulnerable honest community looks like yet…
Comment by Ben — October 11, 2005 @ 6:42 pm
To add to this some more…
I’v been having conversations with a lot of guys around Calvin and I’v been finding that the most beautiful conversations are the ones where we talk about the ugly parts of our lives. It is beautiful because we realize that we are better people after getting through the ugly times. God almost seems to use the bad parts of our lives to show us how potentially good life can be…I’m not sure if that makes any sense.
Comment by Ben — October 26, 2005 @ 3:17 pm
Stumbling across your blog and considering what you’ve said I find that people in our communities are, as you stated, unable to accept ugly. I’ve been obese for the majority of my life and the struggles that have come from that have made all aspects of life difficult. I couldn’t ever find a date for dances in high school. Job interviews are incredibly difficult. Churches always seem to look down their noses at me. My obesity is a way for people to give me looks and turn without ever getting to know who I am. I’ve become quite comfortable on my own and it’s come to a point where I don’t want people to know me. Church should be a place of acceptance and every church I’ve ever been to treats me the same. Maybe not the whole church, but at least one or two members therein. As someone who is on the outside looking in, I hope you can accomplish the task of being a church that accepts anyone and everyone despite their personal flaws including ex-criminal, obese, disfigured, handicapped (mental or physical), race, sexual orientation, etc. Church used to be about reaching those people the most (afterall that seemed to be the people Jesus touched the most). I pray that someday those times return.
Comment by Anonymous — November 1, 2005 @ 11:35 am
For many years I was upset with the church because I found them passing judgement on people whose sins you could see on the outside. Are we not all sinners? What makes my sins greater than yours? I don’t think that this is for us to decide. We need to look at people for who they are and what they are and we need to love them for that. As christians we are called to minister to people all people. I feel theres a large community of people that we need to look at. We need to go after them, love them, and save them in the name of our savior Christ Jesus.
Comment by Brian — November 28, 2005 @ 7:48 pm