Whatever is Lovely
By Megan Burgess
In my profession as a pelvic health physical therapy clinician, I do not dwell in any conventional sense of beauty or loveliness. Often my patients are hurting and in need of help, battling strong adversaries and failing. Some have been victims of sexual trauma; some are battling pornography or other demons related to sexuality. Others are caring for babies amidst immense sleep deprivation, feelings of no control, and a body that seems ‘broken’. Still others experience devastating depression and/or anxiety. Some are growing a child amidst overwhelming life struggles with a body that is pained day and night. All seem irreparably far from beauty as defined by our world’s standards, and often far from my own standards as well.
The saying goes that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” This could not be more true about us as a species. We are often drawn toward clean, symmetrical, shiny, socially-acceptable norms of loveliness. The criteria can change with trends and times and often follow those in power, but some of these standards for beauty persist unaltered over many years. Beauty often looks like—and brings—success.
However, this perception of beauty by earthly standards is contrary to that of our heavenly King. As the Creator he hates pain and hurt and sin, but he loves every misperceived imperfection, every asymmetry, every hair on our head, often defining “beautiful” by standards the world would never know or admire. He brings peace, power and strength to those deemed “ugly” and “unworthy.” He humbles the proud, the arrogant and the conceited regardless of their perceived beauty and loveliness. The impartial Creator of all calls all of his creation beautiful, and he calls us to see the beauty behind the brokenness as well.
That call may not always be easy to hear or obey. We have to see not just the way the world breaks and falls short—the hurt, the pain, the need—but also the loveliness that so often lies there despite or inside or beyond or through the ugliness. We have to see how exalted the humble can be, and how beautiful the lowly, instead of settling for the limited criteria of the world. The truth of the gospel shows us that in our easy admiration of the seemingly lovely we are like simple-minded sheep, too often settling for the damp cold of the field when our shepherd has invited us into a warm place to lay our weary heads. As C.S. Lewis writes in the Weight of Glory, “We are half-hearted creatures […] like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
To our Lord, the people I serve and others like them are the epitome of radiance, made in His image. They are as glorious as the stars in the sky and as magnificent as any mountain range. This loveliness is unchanged by what a person is wearing, how they feel, the degree of their need or their appearance. This has always been true of our Father. It is not always true of us—of me—and any time I find myself making a judgment about someone, I am immediately humbled by the fact that our great God sees this person as the pinnacle of loveliness. I may not perceive it with my limited viewpoint and sin-stained experience, but in knowing that this person sitting across from me is a child of God, I can begin to glimpse what God sees all the time. I can begin to trust in his uncorrupted perspective.
That shift of perspective follows me to my teaching. One course that I instruct is cadaver anatomy for physical therapy students in the Medical School at Washington University in St. Louis. Talk about an abrupt and unnerving lack of loveliness! You enter the suite and are struck by the intense smell of chemical preservation. You see death and decay and the human body’s failures at every corner. However, in the midst of literal death, I can also see many examples of loveliness. I see it in a learner’s face when they truly understand and can visually appreciate the action of a muscle by seeing it in situ. I see it every time I dissect and review the intricacies of our form, the redundancies of design that keep us alive despite everything we encounter in a lifetime. I see it in the beautiful web of vessels that give all of our tissue the nutrients they need. I see it in a tiny muscle of the foot with a very particular role to improve efficacy of another muscle so we walk more efficiently. I see it in my colleagues’ and the students’ gratitude for those that donate their bodies for us to learn and then use this knowledge to better serve our patients. The human body is fragile but also immensely durable; it is intricate but also consists of patterns of repeated design and function. The human body is adaptable, wild and capable but also dependent on specifics to thrive. In the middle of decay and death, there is exorbitant beauty.
Even here, even in a room full of cadavers, full of death and decay—even here Satan has lost. What God has made beautiful becomes all the more visible in the midst of opening it up. Our God’s viewpoint of loveliness still outshines any other, that of demons or humans alike. It takes eyes to see as God sees and faith to accept what Paul calls us in so many letters to accept: that whatever is lovely is never fully lost. It persists in the midst of the ugliness, a lasting radiance in each child of God, a work of wonder from his own hands.
Megan Burgess is a Carver Project Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy and Orthopedic Surgery in the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.