When you look at these pictures of models what do you think? Thin? Skinny? Beautiful? Sexy? Young? Attractive? Modern? Fashionable? Whether or not that’s what you think, it’s certainly what the world thinks. Otherwise, these girls wouldn’t be paid a lot of money to pose in front of cameras or crowds. Now, let’s look at three more pictures, and see what words come to mind.
What words come to mind here? Uncluttered? Beautiful? Clean? Fashionable? Attractive? Again, this might not be what you think, but it’s certainly a common enough reaction for these sorts of spaces to be held up as models of how our living spaces should be look. These three rooms are from different web sites, but each one uses these pictures to draw people into buying the furniture shown, or renting the space pictured.
Both of these sets of pictures represent ideals presented in many mediums. We are barraged by these sorts of images, and told these represent the way we should look, and the way our world should look. And there is a newness about both of these sets of pictures, as well, a new/old, girls old enough to be married portrayed as little skinny pre-teens, old worn floors and old trees placed intentionally in new and among spaces to emphasize the newness of the rest of the items in the space. Maybe the best word to describe these things is clean.
I have another word to suggest, something that might not come to mind immediately. Barren. For this is what our world is, barren. Girls are only beautiful if they are young looking, not ever having had a child. Pregnancy is only beautiful if it leaves no traces, no children, no fat, no…. Just nothing. Trees are beautiful if they are contained in very tight spaces. Clutter isn’t beautiful no matter what it looks like.
We live in a barren world. Perhaps you can get some sense of just how barren by looking at really old paintings, or listening to old music. Look at how we build a neighborhood now; raze down the messy trees, build houses in perfect arrangements, and then plant neat grass yards, with occasional trees, constrained to tight little “islands,” sad in their loneliness. Woods are verboten, places where there are things, like bugs, and spider webs. Too many things, too many dark spaces, not enough openness—woods can’t be trusted. Overall, music, art, and spaces are sparse. Life is contained, and the creation of new life, of new things, is banned to the back of our lives, to the back of our minds.
We live in a world where barreness is praised, and held up as an example. A world where barreness is sought. What does this tell us?
The days are coming when they will say, ”˜Blessed are the and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Luke 23:29
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Very well put, and very sad.