Beauty Tips for Ministers

Jumpers

I see with great horror that In Style magazine is showing jumpers as a new, cute professional look for autumn.

I’m not horrified by the magazine spread, which features really attractive 20-somethings clad in adorable, high couture jumpers paired with great shoes or boots, textured hose and fantastic accessories. These gals mostly look wonderful, creative, hot — in short, just right for traipsing gaily into Manhattan to their jobs as advertising mavens or copy editors of fashion magazines or muppeteers or whatever it is they’re doing.

My horror only comes when I imagine one of my clergy readers getting wind of this and thinking, “Oh good, jumpers are back in style! PeaceBang was so wrong about them! I can’t wait to take out my denim jumper with the buttons on the shoulder and wear it to church!”

Oh, oh, oh. Please don’t do that. Please realize that there’s very little sartorial connection at all between what the fashion magazines are showing and your denim or linen or corduroy jumpers, purchased at J. Jill or Coldwater Creek. They may all be called “jumpers,” but what they communicate are completely different messages. One is fresh, insouciant, even a bit ironic, and absolutely youthful. The other carries an unmistakable whiff of Romper Room or the Harmonic Convergence (”My Best Friend Went To the Harmonic Convergence And All I Got Were These Lousy Crystals”).

If you’re clever, you can indeed add some pizzazz and shape to your old jumpers by adding a belt, or putting a fitted, nifty-looking shirt or lacy bloue underneath it, adding some terrific jewelry, or adding a pair of knock-out boots. Do something with it to lift it from Frumpy to sort of Professional Creative look. Wrap your hair in striped cotton from Marrakesh. Wear six interesting, multi-leveled chains around your neck. Bad news, bubelahs: If it’s denim and v-necked with buttons down the front, trust me: it cannot be saved. It epitomizes frump. Donate it. Use it as a baking or painting smock. It should not adorn your ministerial body in public.

When the vast majority of the world sees a woman in a jumper, they are led to expect not leadership, but Nilla wafers and juice boxes for snack time. If that’s your model of ministry, by all means ignore everything I’ve said and rock your jumpers for all their worth. But don’t break your heart reading this blog, ’cause PeaceBang is not writing for you. Case in point? When I googled “denim jumpers,” I found a web site for homeschooling moms, written from the Christian perspective.

‘Nuff said!

Back For the Fall

Hello dear readers!

I am back from vacation and in the final days before the full swing of the church year begins again. Looking at the number of beloveds who have suffered some health or other crises just recently, I am terribly glad that I have my fall shopping out of the way and can get myself prepared, heart, soul and lipstick, to be a strong and present pastor to my people.
Lady Death may look great in her glamorous black velvet cape, but she got nothing on my Steve Madden knock-offs from Payless. I am going to outdress and outclass that bitch coming and going, I tell you. She says, “Honey. I understand. You hate me now, but someday you and I are going to have a spa day that you will love.”

She’s right, but as for now I fear and fight her.

My heart feels wrung out with fear and helplessness when I contemplate saying goodbye to any of those cherished men and women who are on my private list of People Who Should Not Be Mortal. What else to do but stay close by them, pray, keep funeral readings updated on the computer, and order a new robe from WomanSpirit? I bought a tiny hammered silver cross when I was in Provincetown. I have a feeling it will not leave my neck.

Love is stronger than fear, and nothing is stronger than the scent of Philosophy Empowermint Body Wash in the morning. I breathe it in and know that I can do what must be done to face the day.
No, really. We have to laugh. Don’t we have to laugh? We have to. Ministry is way too scary and serious not to laugh at.

I see my hair colorist this Wednesday afternoon for a dose of auburn to cover my straggly grays and some foils to keep my face framed in shining light from summer, however faux that light may be. I fear that I may be spending a lot of time bedside this coming year, and all my white hankies are cleaned and pressed and waiting in my lingerie drawer, little cotton soldiers in the army of the Lord.

I moved my bed so that my bedroom would have better feng shui. My room faces Main Street and the constant zoom of cars makes me highly anxious at night, even with a noise machine. The back bedrooms either have anxiety-provoking attic stairs in them (ghosts! intruders hiding up there!) or lack closet space.

My body, having fought off a stye, two bouts of fever blisters and food poisoning recently, obviously needs some help in the immunity department. I will start taking my Astra 8 herbal supplement again, daily, as soon as the food poisoning is really out of my system. After that, it’s back to the gym, breathing exercises and prayer every day, eating organic as far as I am able, and no more cheap thrills like staying up ’til 3 am finishing my book.

I’ve laid in a good store of undies, hose and socks (10 pairs of nude, off-black sheer hoses, black tights and a collection of navy/charcoal) and ironed my blouses. Everything is back from the dry cleaner, and I pick up some things from the tailor next week. My boots are being re-soled, and I’ve had my teeth cleaned. In the absence of a Magical Elixir to save everyone you love from suffering, these are some of the things we can do.

I am sitting before the computer taking deep breaths and re-imagining how our Caring Committee team will do its ministry this year given all the recent hard news, and how we will seamlessly invite more participants into the blend. Non anxious. Non anxious. Non anxious.

PeaceBang recommends:
Kiehl’s Lavender Foaming-Relaxing Bath With Sea Salts and Aloe Vera
Kiehl’s Mineral Muscle Soak Foaming-Relaxing Bath with Sea Salts and Aloe Vera
EO Bath House Bubble Bath in Rose & Chamomile
The Universalist Prayer Book, 1895.

Earrings on Male Clergy

Peregrinato, bless his heart, changes the subject by asking me what I think of earrings on male clergy.

I think earrings are cute on men.
I am always a little bit surprised when I see a man wearing earrings in both ears, but it can still look good on some guys. I mean, nothing too big and drag queenish, of course. Don’t even think of going Jack Sparrow on me. Put away that puffy shirt and smoky eye shadow immediately, if that’s what you were thinking.

I don’t like that multiple-piercings look, because it always looks painful and S&M to me, and draws too much attention to the ear and away from the face. I don’t like it on women, either. Like, “Stop puncturing yourself! Ouch!”

Some of my friends have nose piercings. I think they look good on a select few, like L’il Flava, who rocks a little diamond thing in her nose.

Pierced tongues, no. It can interfere with good diction, and the flash of metal is super distracting when you’re talking to people.

I think any earring-wearing male minister is going to have to be realistic about the fact that lots of people will assume he’s gay just for wearing an earring?”).
But since you’re gay, darling inquirer, I doubt that much matters to you.

As far as ears go, just keep ‘em CLEAN! We don’t want to see no taters growing in there, and as I’ve said before, the Norelco Nose and Ear Hair Trimmer is your friend!

P.S. As you know, Peregrinato, you are welcome to borrow my earrings any time.

PeaceBang’s Friendly Nemesis (Part I In a Series)

This is wonderful.

This is just what I had hoped for.

I have just received a thoughtful, very considerate letter from a minister who believes exactly the opposite that I do, and who is working at absolute cross-purposes with me. This gives us an opportunity to delve back into some of the deeper issues around ministerial power, and for that I am immensely grateful to the author of this missive. He can wear jeans to my church any time.

He wrote me off-line with these words,

I have to admit that I read your blog with much dismay. You see, you and I are fighting on different sides of the same war. While you advocate for a more finely honed fashion sense among the clergy, I advocate for quite the opposite.

In my 4 years of ministry so far, I have made it my mission to dress as casually as possible at all times. This means jeans and chaco sandals in the summers (haven’t been able to get away with shorts, yet), and jeans and my beloved Birkenstock clogs in the winter. On Sundays, and for hospital visits, I break out the khakis and dressy shoes. When I preach I wear a tie (but no coat). I fully intend to someday preach a sermon barefoot, just to make a point.

I have spent 4 years being accosted by a small army of old church ladies who have asked me whether I own a suit and tie, whether I would like Santa to bring me one, and whether they might take up a collection to buy me some clothes. My reply is always the same: I have a closet full of ties. I have suits and coats. I have nicer, dressy shoes. The problem is not that of poverty or apathy.
My dear PeaceBang, I am on a crusade which is at cross purposes with yours: I seek the dressing-down of the clergy.

This attitude is rooted in a deep Protestant priesthood-of-all-believers ethic, a deep Stone-Campbell movement distrust of clerical privilege, and a deep liberation theology affection for the poor and oppressed. Simply put, I think that clothes are our culture’s primary marker of wealth and status, and the tradition of dressing up for church is the most insidious development since Judas went to the authorities.

When we dress nicely, we alienate everybody who is not in our club. Just yesterday, I encountered 4 men who came to our church from off the street. One is an unemployed bipolar man who comes for counseling from time to time. The other three were itinerant laborers who were grimy, dressed in work clothes, smelled bad, and needed a meal. I, in my jeans and nice shirt, was obviously more wealthy than any of them. But in my jeans and shirt, I was approachable. In a suit and tie (standard ministerial issue), would the doors of our church or my office have been as open?

I don’t mean to make this so melodramatic. But it is something I feel quite strongly about. I can also tell that you feel as strongly about your position, so my aim is not to convince so much as to exchange ideas. So there you have it. You have met your opposite.”

And he closes with very nice words of appreciation for this blog.

Before I lay my entire response on you, let me point out a few things:
He wears a tie to preach in. Bravo.
He hasn’t reverted to shorts yet. Thank the gods.
He has a closet full of ties and he owns a few suits and good shoes. Good. I hope he’ll decide to wear them more often.
And finally, he has given a lot of thought to his sartorial choices and has put a solid theological foundation beneath them. That’s much more than I can say for some of our sloppy colleagues, whose justification for looking like a mess goes something like this:
“But I’m not comfortable in a button-down shirt and closed-toe shoes!”

Stay tuned for my full response to our jeans-clad friend.

My Response To My Friendly Nemesis (Part II In A Series)

Here is my full response to the reader who wrote to tell me that he is absolutely opposed to my efforts to de-frumpify and dress up my colleagues in ministry. I am so grateful to him for encouraging me to get down on paper the ideas contained within :

“Dear XXX,

This is a great exchange.

I am, of course, dismayed by your own efforts just as you are at mine.

We do have some middle ground, of course! Just not much!

Here’s what I would say to you, my friendly nemesis:
I find it disingenuous and inauthentic to intentionally dress down just to “get with the peeps.” I don’t see Martin Luther King leading his people in a Hawaiian shirt and sandals.
And I think it a most unfortunate choice to intentionally dress more shabbily to show solidarity with the poor, when in my opinion, it is both more authentic and more respectful to bust into a situation dressed to the nines on behalf of a woman or man who is tattered and unclean. It’s my way of saying, “I’ve got a modicum of power here, and I’m going to use it on your behalf.” I think that subverts the world order way more than if I showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, intentionally divesting myself of visible membership in the middle class just for the sake of visual solidarity with people I’m really NOT LIKE.

I don’t like dishonesty and pretentiousness. I am not poor. I am, by virtue of my hard-working , dirt-poor, immigrant grandparents and great-grandparents, a highly educated, privileged woman who has some access to power. I deeply believe that to try to distance myself from that truth does dishonor to my immediate ancestors’ suffering and sacrifices. Perhaps you have no such immediate experience with actual poverty in your family line. I think that if you did, you would worry less about wearing a suit and tie to the office (heavens, do minsiters really do that? Even PeaceBang doesn’t think that’s necessary!) and more about living fully into the power of your office. If we use our power the way Jesus bade us, we have no reason to be ashamed of it, to shy from it, or to masquerade as a powerless person.

I don’t want to get to Heaven and have my Sophie and Max and A.J. and Minette and Charlie and Anna say to me, “We worked our fingers to the bone in this country so that you could become a somebody! We pushed a fruit cart, we lived in tenements, we worked in the coal mines. We went without so that you could go to school and get degrees and fight for our values and for the freedoms we believed in. We suffered and counted pennies so that you could worship God in freedom — even to become a Christian! For this you schlepped around in dungarees and pretended you were poor? Oy gevalt!”

I’m glad to hear that you wear a tie on occasion, because I deeply believe that it actually hurts the little old ladies in your church when you dress like a slob. It insults them. That’s what they’re telling you by offering to buy you clothes. For that generation, your sandals and shorts are a sign of disrespect and hostility. I hope you can understand that. For them, you may as well get up in the pulpit and fart as attend important functions in jeans. It’s a girl thing.
Would it kill you to put on a suit and tie for them now and then? They’re paying your bills, aren’t they? Don’t they need to be reflected in your eyes as much as the poor man does? Aren’t they poor and suffering in their own way? Of course they are. And yet you’re intentionally distancing yourself from them, because it’s more spiritually glamorous to focus on the itinerant laborers who come in “from time to time.” What, your girls who are there ALL the time don’t rate? See what I’m saying?

But this is the hardest thing I have yet to say, my friend:

In my opinion, the only clergy or religious leaders I can respect who dress like the poor ARE the poor. If you are willing to go to your governing board and request to be supported at poverty subsistence level because of your deep distrust of clergy privilege and your unwillingness to publicly identify as a person of means, then you’ve totally earned the right to walk around in jeans and a t-shirt.
But to collect a reasonable salary and to dress like the poor strikes me as … well, let me just quote my ancestors on that one: OY gevalt.

Much love and thanks so much for writing,
PeaceBang”

Stay tuned, readers!! He writes back with more interesting clarifications and good arguments, and then I write back AGAIN!
Is this not HOT?

PeaceBang and Rev. Blue Jeans Continue (Part III)

[The conversation continues thusly… I formatted slightly for your ease in reading. Rev. BlueJeans speaks:)

As I was hoping! A Great Coversation!
And yes, of course you can post, sans identifying information.
I think you misunderstand the thrust of my argument. Or perhaps I don’t understand the thrust of yours.

I guess the question is this: what is the baseline of human attire? You point to my dressing-down as hypocrisy. This would indeed be true, if it represents a “disingenuous and inauthentic” departure from what I would otherwise be wearing–a “masquerade,” as you say.

If I would naturally be inclined to dress in suits and ties, but instead wear jeans and sandals, all in an effort to “get with the peeps,” then yes, that would definitely qualify as hypocrisy. But that’s not what’s happening. I would submit that no human, being in a state of nature (a la Locke or Hobbes), would of his or her own free will choose to wear a suit and tie, or a skirt for that matter. And don’t even get me started on high heels. These items of clothing, far from being the thing most of us would choose to wear, are dreaded, uncomfortable, and expensive encumbrances. At best, we wear them because we’re expected to wear them, and because we assume they’ll gain us the approval of others.
So when I wear jeans or shorts, it’s hardly as if I’m stooping my otherwise lofty perch to “get with the peeps.” I’m being as I would like to be in the world–comfortable, and not broke from dropping $400 on a suit.

I ask you this: would it not be less disingenuous (more ingenuous? more genuine? how does that work?) for me to wriggle into a suit and tie on Sundays, simply to satisfy the expectations of the upper-middle-class folks that pay my bills? I can wear what I’d otherwise wear, or I can move into an entirely foreign class of clothing (ties: nooses for men!) based solely on the proposition that it will set others at ease. How is that not disingenuous!?

I don’t propose that we all dress as coal miners or auto mechanics, in an attempt to imitate the dress of the working poor. I simply propose that we don’t all wear, minimally, $100 worth of clothing to church. Why should people who have a desire to come to church be forced to climb over an obstacle like that? Why couldn’t they wear whatever they want? What could clothing POSSIBLY have to do with God, church, and community?

Clothing functions as a social marker…it sets us apart from each other, illuminates differences in class and status, and reminds people of their sitz im leben. I don’t see it as all necessary in the practice of religion. In fact, I see it as fairly inimical to the practice of Christianity.If I could wave a magic wand, I’d institute mandatory casual dress at every church in the country. Luckily for the church ladies, I can’t.

It’s interesting that you bring up family history as it informs our fashion concepts. I do in fact have a great deal of familiarity with poverty; I am the child of Appalachian farmers many generations back, and my mother didn’t have indoor plumbing until she went to college. As a kid, we didn’t have two nickels to rub together, so perhaps my ethics of clothing has been influenced as much experience as by the Marxist-liberation critique I encase it in.

I await the next volley….”