Become Recognizable

My heart stopped today. No, I didn’t have another heart attack. What did happen was this…

I was walking through BWI airport, excited to take a short break from work when my eyes got “gobsmacked,” as we used to say in my home state of NJ. Overhead, stretched across the entire width of terminal B, hung this sign:

First, my eyes stung. Then my brain hurt. Breath caught in my throat, a shiver ran along my spine. Then it happened … my heart stopped … and fell … in sadness. 

I am sad for the woman in the photograph who proudly displays her “unrecognizable” self as an improvement over the very real and hefty self we see to the left. My apologies in advance to her for any comments I might make that she might find offensive. I’m sure she had good reason for undertaking the depicted transformation … but, that actually brings me to my point.

Who are we as a culture when perfectly human humans are compelled to undergo all manner of drastic plastic surgery in order to feel acceptable? What does it say about us when becoming “unrecognizable” is preferable to being recognized as one of the many fantastic varieties of our miraculous human species? Further … how do we come to terms with our vanity when we find it celebrated on massive banners in public places?

I am sad. I am angry. I am befuddled. I am disheartened. Seeking consolation, I am moved to recall Hellen Keller, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched -- they must be felt with the heart.”

To the hefty woman on the banner, I say this … something about you touched my heart. You are beautiful in my eyes. I know that can’t mean much, as I am a mere stitch in the fabric of our culture. But, I wanted you know.

To the culture that cruelly pressures perfectly beautiful humans to subject themselves to drastic measures hoping to achieve unrealistic expectations regarding physical beauty, I quote D. H. Lawrence, “Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness.”

I was surrounded today by some of the finest individuals I have had the pleasure of sharing space with. On Southwest Airlines flight 562, in the row in front of me, a plain looking woman perhaps in her seventies noticed the woman seated next to her had passed out. She alerted the flight attendants. The flight attendants sprang to action. An announcement was made, “If there is a doctor or any medical professional on the plane, please come forward. We have a passenger in distress. We need your help.” Within moments three passengers arrived to help, an emergency nurse, a cardiac nurse, and a general nurse. For the next 30 – 40 minutes, these beautiful humans tended whole-heartedly to the woman in distress. Hands were held, hearts were opened, smiles were offered, good-natured jokes were shared. Most importantly, the beauty of human caring was abundant. No one noticed anyone’s weight, size, shape, color, or fashion sense.

Eventually, the plane was diverted for an emergency landing. There was some indication that the woman might be suffering a heart attack.  An entire plane of passengers, eager to reach their destinations offered silent support by withholding self-interested grumblings. Hearts united in concern for the woman who, now stretched out in the aisle, shifted into and out of consciousness, her husband looking on in stunned concern.

We landed. An emergency team entered almost immediately. An unrehearsed choreography of helping hands and caring hearts successfully discharged the patient from the plane. There is no accounting of the numbers of beautiful humans who made it possible for that single one of us to receive the care that may have saved her life. But, I offer this observation … the beauty present in that plane today arose from within each and every individual. There was nothing crafted about it.

My heart poses these questions …

Why is it that we do not have banners stretched across airport terminals celebrating the innate beauty of the human spirit in all its shapes and sizes, ages and stages? What would it take to release from the tyranny of the “beauty industry?” How do we develop the collective will to refuse to be bullied into drastic plastic measures designed to mold us, one and all, into Barbie and Ken versions of our former selves?

I offer these suggestions …

Go to your mirror. Look yourself in the eyes. Deeply. See yourself for who you are … a unique and beautiful expression of the miracle of human life. Accept yourself as such. Then, please, go out and look at others through those same accepting eyes.

Let’s reclaim our hearts. Let’s acknowledge our innate beauty. Let’s choose to be recognizable.