Qualifier: What follows is a personal 'female' definition of the topic and is not meant to express the opinions of other females or even my final thoughts on the topic.
Disclaimer: The suggestions that follow do not take into account the status of that particularly maddening female cycle. Timing is everything sometimes.
Its perfectly obvious. Women are usually, comparatively speaking, more beautiful then men. I mean, with all due respect, a beautificious/handsome in the male gender (this is in no way diminishing their inherent attractiveness) is more of an exception than the rule. Now that I've said that I want to disagree with myself. I think I jolly will do. Whatever Diana! All right moving on. So...the point is that a woman is the definition of beauty not the man. With that in mind check out the following exaggerated equation.
Beauty is visual-duh.
Men are visual-double duh.
Men + Beauty: Attraction.
Think: summer and winter, cookies and milk, white on rice.
I am certainly NOT insinuating that all that men appreciate or even look for is 'scenery'. I myself appreciate good 'scenery'. I speak of a part and not the whole.
You understand of course, that in my perfect world I would be my man's perfect-all-absorbing-beauty...ah, its free to dream...However, since I'm neither resident of my-perfect-world or very consciously not any man's perfect-all-absorbing-beauty, what are men and woman to do with the above equation?
For starters and the upside for the girls in this equation is that the man that God leads you to will appreciate your beauty and your efforts to take care of it. If he does not, you have no business marrying him! I'm serious. Girls also have the responsibility not to inappropriately adorn a man's mind-you know what I mean.
For enders and probably the harder end of the bargain, men's visual nature. I'm suggesting the incorporation of B.I.C.
Bounce, Include, Create: B.I.C
1) The Bounce Effect: I'm taking the covenant eyes that Job talked about(Job 31:1). A consistent habit of not 'lusting' on beauty not only guards against degrading habits but also increases your contentment with your own beauty.
2) The Inclusion Effect: If Adam's raptured exclamation of 'bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh' and God's confirmation 'and they shall be one flesh' is to be practiced and honored. Then respecting your beauty's feelings (women compare themselves to each other and to the impossible air-brush models) will include you appreciating beauty in an appropriate way.
There isn't anything wrong with appreciating beauty or even commenting on it (heads up: what time of the month is it?) Just take her feelings into account and don't pretend you aren't attracted to beauty or worse yet blatantly or secretly be making a bee-line for the next ravishing beauty in whatever form that might be.
3) The Creative Effect: Your words create beauty. That's right, your affirming, gentle, thoughtful, patient words and actions express love to your woman. And a woman in love is beautiful. And that's a fact. Daily you have the opportunity to create a beauty. Now that's a beautiful thought.
That equation: its a beautiful things in marriage. (or so I hear+)
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Max
I met him on a shuttle van in route from Atlanta, Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee. No ordinary charmer, the two hour journey found me seat-partners to Master Sergent Riden, a 20-odd year military man, a southern gentleman and a definite inheritor of the talent of WOO. He had it mastered to an art. A rare combination of mellowed confidence interspersed with endearing diffidence.
Designed to send me packing to the nearest recruitment office-out spun a fascinating array of stories and facts, from the personal pull of charisma to the usual financial and travel perks. At one point, out came a magazine prop that had him featured as a top, actually number one to be exact, pick within a magazine picture gallery trumping specimens of muscular military fitness. Suffice it to say that the man was a monument to washboard abs if there every was one.
Abbs aside, what has remind burned in my mind, was the telling of his personal motto. His mantra of sorts. The one he shares with new recruits along with the disclaimer that he's no 'pencil pusher': meaning there is going to be no sliding in by the skin of your teeth with this guy. This personal motto was printed on his stationary, his letterhead, and I could sense, his being.
Never train to Pass,
Always train to Max
He built a context than expanded. That way the military training system works, according to MSG Riden, is that the recruits have certain quotas with a pass and a max zone. If one has the repeated pattern of only training to just pass, then it stands that on a 'bad' day, i.e. disagreement with a girlfriend or wife (his example) or other wise mentally disconcerted or physically at odds, then you will score at lower than the 'passing' mark-and so fail. If on the other hand one strives to max out the max (is that possible?), then on a 'bad' day one will still perform way beyond just passing--and so succeed.
The implications of such an attitude and practice weren't fleshed out till days latter. And it was contrary to the original though pattern.
An etching of 'running the race with patience' and the Education quote: "Higher than the highest human thought can reach in God's ideal for His children. Godliness-godlikness-is the goal to be reached." conjoined to narrate a new idea. It would be easy to take a military stance on a works oriented max-out. But actually God-likeness is a living definition of God. And God is Love, I John 4:16. A strong, tough, working love, yes, but not the shallow, selfishly lazy, but sometimes flashy kind of love. Running the track of this kind of love requires that patience Paul described. It requires the determination to train to Max-It-Out. The fullness of living with this model of Maxing out love is really revolutionizing my life. Max love by making choices that reflect love in the way I treat myself and others. Max love and so succeed at love.
Yes, I gained a new inspiration to 'train' myself to push my supposed limits of physical and mental endurance (which was MSG Rider original point and living illustration) but most importantly to me. I will allow God to show me how to stretch my supposed limitations in Maxing out Love.
Designed to send me packing to the nearest recruitment office-out spun a fascinating array of stories and facts, from the personal pull of charisma to the usual financial and travel perks. At one point, out came a magazine prop that had him featured as a top, actually number one to be exact, pick within a magazine picture gallery trumping specimens of muscular military fitness. Suffice it to say that the man was a monument to washboard abs if there every was one.
Abbs aside, what has remind burned in my mind, was the telling of his personal motto. His mantra of sorts. The one he shares with new recruits along with the disclaimer that he's no 'pencil pusher': meaning there is going to be no sliding in by the skin of your teeth with this guy. This personal motto was printed on his stationary, his letterhead, and I could sense, his being.
Never train to Pass,
Always train to Max
He built a context than expanded. That way the military training system works, according to MSG Riden, is that the recruits have certain quotas with a pass and a max zone. If one has the repeated pattern of only training to just pass, then it stands that on a 'bad' day, i.e. disagreement with a girlfriend or wife (his example) or other wise mentally disconcerted or physically at odds, then you will score at lower than the 'passing' mark-and so fail. If on the other hand one strives to max out the max (is that possible?), then on a 'bad' day one will still perform way beyond just passing--and so succeed.
The implications of such an attitude and practice weren't fleshed out till days latter. And it was contrary to the original though pattern.
An etching of 'running the race with patience' and the Education quote: "Higher than the highest human thought can reach in God's ideal for His children. Godliness-godlikness-is the goal to be reached." conjoined to narrate a new idea. It would be easy to take a military stance on a works oriented max-out. But actually God-likeness is a living definition of God. And God is Love, I John 4:16. A strong, tough, working love, yes, but not the shallow, selfishly lazy, but sometimes flashy kind of love. Running the track of this kind of love requires that patience Paul described. It requires the determination to train to Max-It-Out. The fullness of living with this model of Maxing out love is really revolutionizing my life. Max love by making choices that reflect love in the way I treat myself and others. Max love and so succeed at love.
Yes, I gained a new inspiration to 'train' myself to push my supposed limits of physical and mental endurance (which was MSG Rider original point and living illustration) but most importantly to me. I will allow God to show me how to stretch my supposed limitations in Maxing out Love.
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