Sometimes the human body fascinates me--not just the inner workings and the intricacy with which we are made, but the beauty of the human body, especially a HEALTHY human body can be astounding and almost addicting at times.
We were at a youth group leader retreat over the weekend, and Saturday afternoon we had some time to just hang out, go for a walk, take naps, listen to Penn State beat Notre Dame, etc. As I left to go for a walk with another leader, Dan and 3 others (our pastor and two other leaders) had started a game of 'Maser pole', invented by Mr. Maser, involving a two-on-two game of throwing two frisbees at a pole on each side, or something intense like that. It was a relatively warm day, and by the time we got back from our walk, all three aside from Dan had stripped off their shirts, leading my fellow walker and myself to conclude that the game had escalated to 'strip Maser pole' and my dear husband was winning! Hurray for Dan's frisbee skills!

A few minutes after I went inside, the four came in, all sweaty and gross, but the three still had their shirts off (and Dan was still fully clothed--he must have kicked butt). Now I know this sounds odd and all, but instead of looking away like my formerly modest/Japanese/prudish (?) self would have done, I figured what the heck, they're the ones who took their shirts off, and that's fair visual territory on a guy's body, so why bother looking away. All three of them, in different ways and shapes, were lean, muscular, and HEALTHY--our pastor used to play pro football and must still work out on a daily basis, one guy is an engineer but loves to run and play extreme sport challenges and stuff, and the other guy reads resumes for a living (?). Of course I also know that beneath Dan's shirt lay more rippling muscles than all three of them combined, but decided to cherish the fact that I am about the only one who gets to know that. :)
It can't be WRONG to admire peoples' bodies like this, can it? Obviously I don't think so, or I wouldn't be posting this on an internet blog. The thing is, I tend to admire healthy women's bodies as well--especially those who have good leg muscles. The funny thing is, it doesn't matter how skinny or chunky people are--healthy people come in all different shapes, lengths, and sizes, but you can tell if someone's healthy or not by the way they carry themselves, and it is such an amazing sight to see when someone is disciplined physically enough that it shows in their bodies. I have never really had the urge to keep staring at a supermodel if she's really really skinny (unless it is staring out of horror and wondering if she ate at all last month). But I remember a while back when there was a cross-country race in State College and Dan and I were driving to the store alongside of a bunch of high school/college age runners warming up for the meet. Wow. Talk about physically disciplined--it was such a beautiful sight.