COMMENTARY: These strange things we call bodies

c. 1996 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of”Turn Toward the Wind”and publisher of Religion News Service.) (RNS)-In light of the recent allegation that Princess Diana has dimpled thighs, and her tearful denial that any fat has invaded her body, I have a confession of my own. I have cellulite. I am […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of”Turn Toward the Wind”and publisher of Religion News Service.)

(RNS)-In light of the recent allegation that Princess Diana has dimpled thighs, and her tearful denial that any fat has invaded her body, I have a confession of my own.


I have cellulite.

I am not proud of this, but neither do I cry or lose sleep over it. If people want to judge me by the smoothness of my thighs, I don’t want to know them.

To the best of my knowledge, the cellulite took up residence somewhere between the ’70s, when I ate a couple of Big Macs, and the ’80s, when I had a couple of kids.

By now my thighs have earned their bumps. They have bounced colicky babies and absorbed the impact of practice soccer balls. They have pushed open doors when my arms were full of groceries and borne the brunt of a sailboat’s boom.

In short, my thighs are just another utilitarian part of what I have come to regard as a somewhat amusing shell. I feel sorry that Princess Diana has not yet realized that bodies are not all they’re cracked up to be.

During adolescence, our bodies begin to metamorphose as we stand by helplessly. Through the agonizing years of locker-room comparisons, we wonder if we will end up too large or too small, just right, or embarrassingly out of the ordinary.

When things finally settle out, we enjoy a few short years of low maintenance and high attention.

And then, before we know it, our bodies are morphing again without our permission. We look at vacation snapshots and are surprised to see our heads on someone else’s body. We diet, exercise, and do what we can, but our bodies are changing-even if we pretend they are not.


That’s when we must make a choice: We can nip and tuck and spend hours agonizing over wrinkles and cellulite, or we can decide that bodies are not the most important thing about us.

Sure, it’s good to stay healthy. But agonizing over the course of nature is no way to spend the second half of your life.

It seems to me that God has given us these changing bodies to help remind us that life has its phases. A young, firm body is helpful in attracting a mate. But by the time the childbearing years are passing, it is time to concentrate less on biceps and more on attributes like wisdom.”I am less concerned with decoration, the outside, and more concerned with the inside now,”says one 50-something woman in Betty Friedan’s book,”The Fountain of Age.””I’m in some kind of a quest for more meaning in whatever I do. I’m less and less interested in small talk.” Obsessed as this society is with physical appearance, it’s easy to forget that what really counts are minds and souls.

And if we lose time developing them because we are concentrating on keeping slim thighs or flat stomachs, we lose touch with something really important. And that, Princess Di, is something worth crying about.

So now that you know about my cellulite, I’d like you to know a few other things. You may not see it, but my mind has never been more open to new ideas.

My heart is battle-scarred, but more able to embrace those I once found unlovable.

And my soul has never been more ready to accept the things I cannot see or understand.


So go ahead and laugh at my thighs. I will probably laugh along with you. It seems my sense of humor is improving with age, too.

MJP END BOURKE

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