A Peerless Pear

A Peerless Pear

Crooked, crawling curves give preview of it’s succulent center

Fervent freckles add to it’s cherished charm

Rosy rouge parades, coloring it's compliment

A scanty scar adds to it’s incipient intrigue

Isn’t it a beautiful pear? Even it’s so-called flaws are beautiful. Those are what set it apart from the other three pears I purchased at the grocery store. Those other pears could be called flawless but I found them rather insipid. To be just like every other pear--what photographer would focus it’s lens in it’s dull direction? What painter would apply it’s brush to match it’s monotony? What writer would turn thoughts to words, and words to poetry to capture it’s prosaicness? None would. So, why should we do this with our own bodies? Why be like every other pear out there? Let us celebrate what makes us who we are: the way our hair curls under on the left but flips out on the right, the way our freckles trickle across our face, the way our laugh may make us blush in embarrassment, the way one eye squints smaller when we genuinely smile, or the way the Spirit makes our countenance glow when we do what it right.

Another quote from Elder Jeffery R. Holland, an apostle of Jesus Christ:

“I plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not! But as one adviser to teenage girls said: “You can’t live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people’s opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power. … The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.]” 8 And in the kingdom of God, the real you is “more precious than rubies.” 9 Every young woman is a child of destiny and every adult woman a powerful force for good. I mention adult women because, sisters, you are our greatest examples and resource for these young women. And if you are obsessing over being a size 2, you won’t be very surprised when your daughter or the Mia Maid in your class does the same and makes herself physically ill trying to accomplish it. We should all be as fit as we can be—that’s good Word of Wisdom doctrine. That means eating right and exercising and helping our bodies function at their optimum strength. We could probably all do better in that regard. But I speak here of optimum health; there is no universal optimum size.

In terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness women, including young women, face in the modern world. And if adults are preoccupied with appearance—tucking and nipping and implanting and remodeling everything that can be remodeled—those pressures and anxieties will certainly seep through to children. At some point the problem becomes what the Book of Mormon called “vain imaginations.” 11 And in secular society both vanity and imagination run wild. One would truly need a great and spacious makeup kit to compete with beauty as portrayed in media all around us. Yet at the end of the day there would still be those “in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers” as Lehi saw, 12 because however much one tries in the world of glamour and fashion, it will never be glamorous enough.

A woman not of our faith once wrote something to the effect that in her years of working with beautiful women she had seen several things they all had in common, and not one of them had anything to do with sizes and shapes. She said the loveliest women she had known had a glow of health, a warm personality, a love of learning, stability of character, and integrity. If we may add the sweet and gentle Spirit of the Lord carried by such a woman, then this describes the loveliness of women in any age or time, every element of which is emphasized in and attainable through the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”