Beauty Tips for Ministers

Hamhock Alert! More on Self-Care And I Mean It This Time

Bonjour from the beauteous Pacific Northwest, my doves!

I am staying in Seattle as the guest of a Methodist clergy brother who offerered me hospitality DURING THE PASSING OF THE PEACE at the Festival of Homiletics in Nashville this past May. What trust! What kindness! What Christian virtue! I still can’t quite get over it. Not only did he invite me to stay with him and his wife for three nights without having any acquaintance with me whatsoever, he left a key for me yesterday afternoon because he and his wife had an opportunity to spend a night away. It seems they hosted a youth group last week and needed a bit of R & R for themselves. One can only imagine. What is harder to imagine, however, is leaving a key to your home for a total stranger and inside, a note that says, “Make yourself at home!”

I am humbled by their goodness.

I am also, to get to the subject at hand, humbled by the photographs of me taken at General Assembly. The Bad Hair is one thing (either too dry or greasy, too blonde, unstylable) but the enormous hamhock upper arms are another. I am becoming my great-grandmother! You can start calling me Baba Billo. I knew the gut was deteriorating. I knew the legs were getting more tree-stumpish with every week away from the gym. I knew the face was losing its battle to retain notable bone structure. But mon Dieu! My upper arms are going to need their own zip code soon!

Here it is, chickens. Looking back over the year and realizing that I have given my congregation 100%, my doctoral program 100%, my new student minister 100%, and the class that I’m teaching 100% helps me to understand and to accept that I have been giving myself the Leftovers. Ooh, and such yummy leftovers! Macaroni and cheese! Quesadillas! Steak tips and Ben & Jerry’s!
All kidding aside, and all self-acceptance in my heart, I’m going to change some priorities and lose some habits. I love my life too much to let it continue so out of balance. I do believe that these are excellent years for working hard — and even too hard. I’m only 41, and I have tons of energy and passion. Why not? But it’s just not fair or wise to keep loading weight onto my body as though I am some kind of indefatigable sherpa and not a fairly small person with an insatiable appetite, love of food and rebellious denial of the effects of both.

I saw this morning that our fall district minister’s retreat is on the subject of self-care, and that it will be led by a colleague who runs several miles a day and who has always been incredibly fit and trim. He has a message that clergy have to model health and wellness in body as well as soul. Isn’t that serendipitalicous?

I can’t make weight loss my goal, because I know how THAT works, and it’s called failure. But when I get home I am going to join Weight Watchers with the aim of re-learning portion sizes and mindfulness in the mangia department. I’m going to try to find some kind of dance class or activity to do on a regular basis, return to the gym (I actually LIKE the gym!) and I’m going to have a long hard talk with myself about some of the habits that need to get kicked to the curb (like reading celebrity gossip mags or beauty magazines while munching snacks as the ultimate brainless break).

While on the Oregon coast the other day I was praying about the weeks of summer: “God, what would you have me do with this time?” And God said, “HOW ABOUT TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF, DINGBAT?”
And I said, “Oh! Ha ha! Oh yeah! Thanks, God! I forgot all about that!”

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Out of the Blogosphere…

…But only for a few more days!

My lambs, I am missing you after a week away but I won’t be home for another three or four days.

I won’t lie to ya, it’s been fun slogging about in jeans and Keene’s and barely any makiage.

Kiss of peace to you all,
and see you next week.

This morning: SEATTLE!

Juniper, are you game for drinks or coffee tomorrow?

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Small Purses At Conference: It Can Be Done!

Bonjour, lovely people!

PeaceBang is quite tired this morning, having hit that point one hits at every conference where the cartoon bubble above her head is one big scribble– like the one Snoopy used to have when he was very confused or overwhelmed. PeaceBang calls this the Snoopy Scribble.

(Digression: I also just learned that my beloved high school music director is retiring next year and this news has my chest hurting as though someone shot a cannon ball at me and said, “CATCH!” Why would this news make me so unutterably sad? Arthur Sjogren has given decades of service to the New Canaan school system and deserves a wonderful retirement, which he shall have. I suppose this is just about Time Marching On and Crushing Us All Under Her Bierkenstocks As She Goes.)

ANYway, darlings, speaking of aging and such, PeaceBang has noticed that she isn’t as able to sling around fifty pound book bags as she used to, and has lately suffered the effects of loading herself up like a sherpa before and after class, not to mention schlepping an enormous purse at all other times. Her massage therapist, generally a gentle person, strernly admonished her to give herself a break from shoulder bags lest she wind up with real damage to her skeletal and muscular system.

As a result, PeaceBang is actually getting through General Assembly with a short-handled cotton purse that must be carried by hand rather than slung abut the body. She carries in it a cosmetics bag, small wallet, camera, small pad and pens, and hankie. She plots out her course for the day and leaves her big program in the hotel room.

This has been liberating in many ways, and also beneficial to PeaceBang’s physique in that she doesn’t end the day stretching out on the floor of the hotel groaning like one recently raised from the dead.

Also, the purse has a very high cuteness factor. Photo forthcoming.

In the interest of full disclosure of her own sartorial sins, PeaceBang confesses to her readers that three days spent in sandals with unforgiving straps and heels has led her to don Keenes for the day. Even worse, she was seen last night in 3″ wedge FLIP FLOPS. Darlings, it was that or suffer circulation problems that might lead to amputation. And PeaceBang likes her feet!

Be well, my friends! Kiss of peace from Portland!

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Goat Guys

My dear Guys With Goatees,

Several colleagues and I in the Red Lion Inn lobby were just discussing facial hair and have came to the consensus that goatees should be CLOSE-TRIMMED and neat, and not protrude from one’s chin like Rip Van Winkle. We feel that this is an issue of cleanliness and therefore, of godliness.

R. would like to add that “I also think that bald men with sideburns are a mistake.” PeaceBang will have to muse on that one for awhile. Readers? Agreed? Disagreed?

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Batik! The Musical

Hola darlins!!

I am here in Portland, OR and heading to my room for a nap before meeting some Reverend Chicks for dinner and an outing to {{{Enter angelic music}}} Powell’s Books.

So far, I must report that the colleagues are looking much more professional this year!
I’m just concerned that so many of us seem to be glowing with a kind of preternatural exhaustion and luminescent complexions that, in an earlier era, bespoke a penchant for pinches of arsenic.

Give me a day or two and I’ll be running around with Pastoral Bronzer dusting up the palest among us.

The biggest bloopers in the clothing department thus far seem to involve BATIK garments, which I think are supposed to impart a kind of creative, goddessy vibe but unfortunately read more as Flower Child. I saw one batik poncho with highly visible bra straps and one batik jumper with a seat so tight it will take all PeaceBang’s willpower not to follow worriedly after the wearer of said jumpsuit with needle and thread, safety pins, or a modesty sheet.

Tomorrow: fanny pack patrol!

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Packing Vestments

Could I be MORE sick of trying to figure out what to pack for this conference? It’s not GA that’s the issue — it’s trying to figure out how to fit in a week’s worth of vacation duds in the same bag. As George Bush the Elder would say, “NOT GONNA HAPPEN.”

So I’m taking one suitcase and a nice matching rolling duffle.

By request of my colleague, The Lively Tradition, I have to wear vestments for a Communion Service (why can’t I just be the keepin’-it-real, friendly-type co-officiant in civvies, I’d like to know?) so after much thought I’ve decided to pack an alb and stole — all scrinched up to fit in the suitcase, and to be taken out later and given to hotel housekeeping for a dry cleaning and press. It will cost a pretty penny, I’m sure (more like a stupid, wasteful penny) but I’m taking THREE FLIGHTS out to Oregon tomorrow and I’ll be darned if I’m going to drag a garment bag around with me. Scott’s suggestion of shipping it out there seems expensive and complicated, sorry darling.

Also, there is no way I’m going to figure out that One Bag thing, but nice try, sweeties.

PeaceBang is the crankiest girl in town right now. Garumph, garumph, garumph! Upstairs for more packing.

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