Today I was rummaging around online (can someone really rummage around online…?)for templates or images for this blog of mine. What do I want it to look like? Feel like, read like? I ended up on Flickr and typed in various, and now seemingly uncreative, search words such as landscape and color and colour. Not finding anything that was working for me I eventually typed BEAUTY in that little search box. I don’t know what I was hoping for with that, maybe artists’ depictions of beauty, more landscapes, more colors, skies. But what I noticed most were the images of women: smiling, young, old, naked, clothed, black, white, colorful, dark, dirty, clean, polished, working, third world, urban, plastic, country, all mixed in with images of landscapes and flowers. They were all beautiful.
This search brought me back to a previous exploration of women and beauty that I had done in preparing for a talk for high school girls a month or so ago.
"A capable, intelligent, and virtuous woman--who is he who can find her? She is far more precious than jewels and her value is far above rubies or pearls” Proverbs 31:10
CHAYIL (pronounced khah'-yil) is the Hebrew word translated as virtue that is used in this popular biblical passage. If someone had asked me before my study what a “virtuous women” looks like, in a moment I probably would have described images of soft, serious, modest, kind but maybe even passive women. Honestly, all kind of nun-like. Surprisingly though, this
word that has been translated to “virtue” means quite the opposite of anything else that I would naturally think of when “virtuous women” pictures are conjured up in my head. This Hebrew word chayil was usually saved to describe great forces and armies. So, instead of a push-over, a woman that is said to be “chayil” would possess a certain strength, might, and power. Think about that! What does that women look like?
That’s it.
And I still haven’t found a layout I love.
