Spell Beautiful

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We are all broken,
That's how the light gets in.
-Ernest Hemingway

Sometimes I get confused with preferences and standards. The concepts of the un-beautiful and the overlooked. Are we always boxed within predetermined concepts that we end up adjusting to meet those standards, failing to find out what's true, pure and sincere? Wouldn't it be a lot more empowering to understand and perceive surfaces with the context underlying and surrounding them?

What is the meaning of "beautiful"? Is it an appearance or is it an expression? An appearance that is changeable and variable with time and events? Or an expression of something that is within, of something more powerful and more genuine, of pains, joys, curiosities, and passions?

You are beautiful. I'm not saying this because this line has been available and rehearsed by most people to appreciate people. There is a certain depth to these words that only those who choose to look will understand. Everyone has beauty. And every one of us should appreciate each other's beauty. But let me add another idea here. 

We are all beautiful but this beauty we possess can only be visible if we choose to show it. Never think that the definition of beautiful is the standard set by people whose eyes see only the shallowest. The beauty in you is the reality that is within you. It may be absurd, it may be unacceptable, it may be imperfect... according to the predetermined standards. What makes you real is what makes you human, and that itself makes you beautiful. 

We have fears. We are afraid that the reality in us may limit us from being accepted or loved, but true acceptance and true love sees through imperfections and weaknesses. True love appreciates real beauty. When we tamper this authentic beauty with pretensions and with efforts to climb up the society's standards, that's when we choose to hide the beautiful in us. But if we remain true and pure, then, there would we find those who will love us with sincerity. We should allow people to love the real beauty in us. 

You think you're unusual? There's so much beauty in what's different. There's so much beauty in the real expression of the spirit within everyone's flesh. Don't get bothered that you're deviated from the norms, as long as it's real and true, it is ethereal and worthy of love and appreciation.  

These words are not new. They've been paraphrased, translated, rephrased, spoken, written, believed, rejected, passed on from nations to nations, among peoples, throughout time. But its timelessness proves its strength. All of us should be reminded of these things everytime, so we might not falter to look for the wrong kind of love through the wrong ways of beautifying ourselves.

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A reminder to self

PS, this certain post's font style is annoyingly different from the whole blog's font style. Tried to do something about it, but it ain't changing ugh. Just saying.

Princess Tales

A few minutes ago, I was browsing Youtube videos of old Disney fairytales and ugh it all reminded me of my youth and the dreaminess of fantasies. They are just tales that are rather untrue and instead of giving kids good lessons, pollute their mind that love comes just like that, but, if you are watching from a more matured and better-angled view hehehe well, you can probably see some good points in it.

The princesses hahaha

HAHAHA while I don't think I don't care about this romantic childish stories anymore, I think it's nice to get out of all the grownup stress for a while and enter the childhood dreams every now and then.

While it's apparent that these stories got mainstream and known to most people because they were produced and animated by Disney with other big movie companies, I prefer thinking that all of these have their classic foundations and that the books and novellas from which they were based are now dusty and crunchy, and if lucky, covered with breathtaking vintage, leather book covers.

I badly want to see this edition and the older and more classic ones!

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Before, my favorite among these types of stories was the Cinderella. I mean duh, an average girl like me who'd never once experienced romance and all the cheesy menu would most likely, probably, want to find Prince Charming HAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOL really cheeesh. Anyway, that was until I've read Beauty by Robin McKinley.

Her transformation!

When I've opened or must I say, clicked that book, I didn't know it was another among a lot of Beauty and the Beast versions. And the book was smoothly written that I just fell in love with how Beauty fell for the Beast (and for the record, Belle wasn't Beauty's name in the book). Honestly, I cried reading it HAHAHAHAHA not because of the thought of falling in love or what, but because I saw how real a real love must be like. (grinning me). Well, I have to acknowledge McKinley's writing for that, and of course, all others who contributed to the story until it is polished as it is now.




What I saw in the story was love, as in love in its finest. Beast's character was so unlikeable, that I hated him in the beginning, but when you try to look at someone and regard them on a more positive view, you would love them, even if there could be no reasons. AND THIS IS NOT JUST ROMANTIC LOVE. I also mean the people out there, who we avoid, disregard, and maltreat, well, we just gotta realize how precious they may be in God's eyes.

I just loved Max Lucado's comparison of the story of the Beauty and the Beast to what Jesus did for all of us. I really cried because of the easy analogy, I was able to see Jesus' love more. :) This was in Lucado's He Chose the Nails. While we all are alike the cursed Beast, unlikeable, tainted, full of pride, impatient, demanding, obnoxious, and all other annoying qualities, Jesus is like Beauty. He came for us with full humility, without arrogance despite His assets to be proud of. He came so we can be happy and so we can escape the beasthood in us.

On the latter part of Beauty, Beast was dying because he and Beauty became apart for a while, but then, Beauty came back for him and he lived and he just didn't live. He managed to get out of the chains of the curse put in him because of Beauty's love for him. Beauty loved him and that's all it took for him to find real beauty in life.

This story then, when compared to Cinderella is very different.While Cinderella's life changed because Prince Charming liked her at the ball, the Cinderella all dressed up and glamoured, the Cinderella very different from who she is at home, Beauty loved Beast even if she cannot find any reason to.

They say true love doesn't look at the physical characteristics of a person, but whatever's within, I must say, based from what I've learned from Jesus's love that true love looks neither on the outside or inside characteristics of someone, love overlooks everything and love just loves. True love is found in a love that doesn't need anything at all to happen. It just happens and it's real. If for fairytales, true love is a very happy and bright emotion, for me, according to Jesus, true love is never an emotion, it is a fact that can be defied not of whatever emotions or feelings. Emotions do change, but facts don't.

So what then is a true love kiss? :) It's the kiss of life given by Christ so that after all the imprisonment of sufferings and trials, we can live happy ever after and even beyond. (happy)