This video has been popping up all over my Facebook feed, I shared it and sang its praise.  This video reminds me how essential it is to not only love others - but love ourselves.  This video seems to screams a simple message to my slow thumping heart, saying: "Elliot - be gentle with yourself, love yourself, for you are fearfully and wonderfully made - you have your own type of beauty that is more then skin deep - you. are. more. beautiful. then. you. acknowledge."  But is that really what it is saying - or is that just the message I wanted to take from it?

A person I really respect told me how much this video frustrats him- he pointed out that things like "freckles, round faces and wrinkles" are labeled as ugly and that things like "blue eyes, thin face and soft chin" are labeled as beautiful.  I agree with him, this suggestion is frusterating - I don't think blue eyes, freckles, wrinkles or any list of things should ever define a persons beauty.  My mother has always said that ". . . pretty is, as pretty does."  I see so much truth, promise and value in this saying.  Being pretty doesn't come from our skin - but from what is underneath it - our minds - our souls - our compassion - our hearts.   

The more I think about this video the more I realize how much I love the idea behind it, but question the execution and details it suggests.  I wonder how many of my best of intentions are lost in translation because I lack the attention to detail and intentional insight it takes to effectivly execute and communicate a good idea.