Beauty Tips for Ministers

Best Product Name of the Day

Touch Me Then Try To Leave Bathina Body Creme by BeneFit.

I just used some and I smell so good I would definitely not leave me. Just the thing for post-GA dehydrated hotel skin. Mmmmmm, good.

He Can Run, But He Cannot Hide

I have an adorable colleague who has a ponytail I’d like to wack and a pair of spectacles I am BOUND AND DETERMINED to donate to the Lion’s Club. It’s gotten to the point where we start cracking up pretty much the moment we see each other, because he knows just what I’m thinking and he also knows I will not rest until I am triumphant in this crusade.

Just wait ’til I get his partner involved. Your time is limited, Mister. You can run but you cannot hide.

He has this great long, kind of craggy face –it’s actually not craggy yet but it will be wonderfully so in about 15 years. He’s one of those rotten no-goodniks who’s actually going to look better as he ages. And he needs new spectacles that don’t take up half his great craggy face. I can just see him in new frames, and it’s just going to be revolutionary cuteness.

What’s with these people who dare to get more attractive as they age while I am valiantly fighting off jowls and grandmotherly upper arms? I have a 60-something year old retired colleague who, damn him, looks younger now than he did ten years ago. As much as I love him,
I know that he uses no skin products whatsoever and that his only real beauty regime is to regularly imbibe good Scotch. I cry out to the Lord in my bitterness and envy. Lord, hear my prayer.

You DO Have A Shape, And It’s Not Rectangular

PeaceBang’s mind is just REELING from a week in St. Louis with her colleagues and co-religionists.

There was an abundance of tie-dye, and at one event every single woman was wearing the same exact ugly sandals. Hot investing tip: As the Boomers age, you all might want to buy stock in Clarke shoes, which specializes in comfortable sandals that have the dubious virtue of being one step up, attractiveness-wise, from actual orthopedics.

There is indeed an unspoken dress code for religious liberals, and it’s ain’t pretty.

When I get home from Chicago I’ll treat you to loads of photos.

I shared a shuttle to the airport with two ministerial colleagues and I must admit that the moment I laid eyes on them I thought, “Well, they’re earnest Save The Whales types and I’m a snarky Gen X-er, so I’m not sure I should even strike up a conversation.”
Also, I was just so tired.
But as it turns out, we had a hilarious talk in the actual airport and they were totally Cute People with a great sense of joie de vivre and affectionate humor. And even though they described themselves as “old hippies,” I don’t think they’ve saved any actual whales for awhile.

As we chatted, she revealed that she is an appreciative reader of this blog so I gave them both some tips — the man has a really cool hairline that right now is being obscured by the presence of a long ponytail, which I think he should cut off so he can feature that wonderful kind of widow’s peak he’s got. I encouraged him to go to a great stylist and get a wonderful cut and some pomade (maybe by Crew?) that will shine up his gorgeous dark brown hair and keep it in place.
He was wearing a nice denim shirt and chinos and since we had just been at GA, I’ll give him a pass on the chalice baseball cap. He made reference to some “colorful ties” he wears with his shirts. If that means a closetful of UNICEF children’s art ties, dear M., we’ll have to talk.

In the interest of full disclosure I should say that I myself looked like a half- deranged sloppy mess by that point, having just slapped on whatever was vaguely clean for my trip to Chicago.

My female colleague is as cute as can be, but was dressed in a Guatamalan cotton striped shirt that was rather boxy, with a buttoned stand-up collar, short sleeves and no shape to it. Fearing, as most of us do, that she has “no waist,” she had left it untucked, and it was long.

She was also wearing a boxy, slightly too big and too long purple front-buttoned cotton skirt with no real shape to it, either. As a result of this outfit, she looked like a cute little rectangle, and I was utterly unable to discern her female curves. I advised her to find a skirt with some shape to it — perhaps one of the little cotton items at Old Navy with the nipped in waist. And I think she might either belt that Guatamalen shirt, or better yet, wear it as a jacket with a fitted t-shirt underneath and some chunky beads. She’s a very sweet Earth Mother type who wears her hair in a long braid, so she might want to try a low chignon. Maybe Rali, who knows how to do the fastest and prettiest low chignon I’ve ever seen, could reach out? I’ll get them together.

We decided together that fashion for ministers is all about looking like yourself, but not like a cliched version of yourself. I thank my male colleague for that quote, because I think it’s just perfect. I also agree with him that a slight element of surprise is good. As he said, “Keep them guessing.”

It was great to meet them, and I wish them every happiness in their new settlement.

PeaceBang in St. Louis

Darlings! I write you from General Assembly at St. Louis, where we are assiduously taking photos of the worst fashion offenders.

Next year I vow to bring a Ponytail Patrol with me. It needs to be two people, at least: one to come up behind the victim and gently push his face down, and a second to have the scissors at the ready.

Last night in the bar there was a fellow sitting across from me who had not only a scraggly ponytail in the back, but a twisted 13″ beard hanging off his chin. I was transfixed with horror.

Ta ta for now, loveys. Miss you. The humidity here is TERRIBLE for the frizzies! Good thing I have some Sebastian “Wired” product that locks in curl and shine!

What To Wear For A Crisis

A loyal reader alerted me to a lesbian Episcopal blogger who writes about attending General Conference and struggling mightily with the issues around radical welcome.

Sister, PeaceBang is 100% with you in spirit. God grant you strength and heart.

This blogger describes coming back from plenary sessions and getting dressed in a pair of gym shorts, a Red Sox shirt, a Red Sox cap and a pair of PINK FLAMINGO flip-flops to go down and have a meal at the hotel bar.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.
I am still 100% with you in Spirit, sister, but not in style. It’s time for an intervention.

Let us pray:

Dear Lord,
The work You call us to is hard indeed, and takes us down many a painful path. When our hearts are laden with sorrow and our spirits cannot find You, let us remember that we are nevertheless agents of your love. Give us the strength to remember this wherever we go, even so humble a place as a hotel bar. And Lord, give us the strength to look the part– emissaries of grace, believers in beauty, people of dignity, representatives of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What To Wear For a Crisis:

Perhaps a pair of nice, gently flared dark denim jeans or a comfortable skirt, some fashionable boots if you need to kick butt (or want to give the impression that you could if you needed to), a tailored, white blouse, and a BIG cross. Cheery lipstick, and no mascara. Don’t forget the white hankie in your pocket, and a packet of Kleenex in your purse.

Let us join in a responsive reading:

The only place that a clergyperson should ever wear sports regalia is while attending a game of that team.
All: We are believers in beauty.

The only place a clergyperson should ever wear pink flamingo flip-flops, if ever, is by the pool.
All: We are emissaries of grace.

The only place a clergyperson should ever wear gym shorts is at the gym.
All: We are dignified people.

This is the word of Truth. Thanks be to God.

Blogging Sister Friend, go in peace and sin no more.

Comportment

When former Harvard President Lawrence Summers appeared at the Harvard Divinity School Convocation several years ago, he sat on the stage slumped way down in his chair with his legs sprawled apart. He looked like a disgruntled frat boy, but the fact that he was wearing academic regalia made him look like a particularly enormous and ill-mannered doofus.

I knew he was not long for his position, and I was right. His body language told me everything I needed to know about his inability to work respectfully and well with others, and to understand the concept of Occasion.

The way we sit is important, brothers and sisters. When you are in the pulpit or at any public gathering, concern yourself not only with your attire but with your comportment.

There should be no slumping, and there should certainly not be any sprawling of legs or any other body parts.

In the pulpit, there should be no crossing of legs. Crossing of the ankles is fine. Crossing of the self is also fine.

I know of a particular minister who does not so much appear in public as flings herself about. This extravagance of movement, also known as lack of boundaries, distracts greatly from her oratorical powers. Her words may bespeak Servant of God, but her body communicates labrador retriever.

I love labrador retrievers with all my heart, my dears. Just not in Christian leadership, no matter what Paul may have said in that part about “in Christ there is no east or west, or cat or dog.”