Title: 'Love's Eye'

 Aging is an aspect of nature that has baffled human-beings for eons. Today in popular culture much emphasis is placed on youth. So much so that getting old has become a source of great stress for many. Women in particular, are prone to worry about their looks fading from aging, and many attempts are made to at least slow down, if not completely reverse, the aging process.

For that very purpose much money and energy is spent on diets, exercise equipment, technologies, creams, lotions, potions, and various types of treatments and therapies including some that are considered rather dramatic like plastic surgery, and bot-ox. The need to look our best, is very understandable, and the lengths we are willing to go for that, are very much a matter of personal preference and individual choice, but like everything else in life, it is important to know where and when to draw the line.

I would certainly draw the line at women harming themselves, risking their overall health, and disfiguring themselves in the attempt to either find or keep a sexual partner, or a particular kind of vocation. Whilst there are many qualified and gifted practitioners doing wonderful work in this area, we also have the horror stories of addiction to plastic surgery, and of naturally beautiful people who are convinced that they are really ugly.

Yet whether we agree with it or not, aging and eventually dying, is a reality of our existence in this time and space universe that we all must deal with, and it is very important that we do so in healthy ways, which do not injure us or our environment, individually or collectively.

Ideally, we could develop are self-image and self -esteem, based entirely on God's vision of us. For God sees each and everyone of us His/Her creations, as unique, precious, completely valuable, marvelous and beautifully made. It would do us a great deal of good, to remember this fact and teach it to our youth.

Ibeji is aware that for many women, the opinion of their body, which t is held by their partner i.e. husband, boyfriend etc...is extremely important. Therefore men can certainly help a great deal, in this endeavor, by encouraging their female partners to feel naturally more beautiful, and to appreciate them more, for who they are on the inside.So who do you listen to now, about your body and your looks?

I know I was never fully happy with myself until I began to see myself as God sees me, and to accept God's view of me as my truth. Then I began a daily routine of reminding myself repeatedly of God's truth about me and my body, and thanking God for it. And so this has been my main way of 'growing older gracefully' (rather than disgracefully). Hence, the following poetry:-

 'LOVE'S EYE'

How can it be thus?

How can Love's eye be true,
Against confounding age's cruel knife,
And this thy hand, against thy self approve

That, though no form of thee hast left behind

O! in what sweat dost thou thy sins encase. 

To follow that which flies before thy face,

 

Lift up thy burning head, each under eye

Where his love-kindling fire doth surely lay
So far from home into thy deeds to pry,

Whilst he, the sovereign will watch the clock for thy,

So should thy papers, yellowed with their age,
Straight in his heart that mercy come to cage

Thou must each day say o'er the very same;  

Thou art my all-the-world, and we must strive again.

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Poetry by Rev.Bola

(Copyright: 21.1.12 -ARR)

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*Prayer Art - From Art Collection by Rev.Bola