Beauty Tips for Ministers

Juicy People

Today I was out and aboot, writing a sermon IN MY MIND (gosh, it was a good one, too! Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that the Holy Spirit will me re-create it tomorrow morning, ’cause today was too beautiful and too full of fighting dust bunnies in the house, cooking and deep breathing to get it out through my fingers and into the computer), and lookin’ at the beautiful people in the world. Some delighting in the sunny day, some too frenetically going about their business to make eye contact, some young, some old, some looking like hell on wheels, some looking like juicy grace on a bun.

I decided that the people who looked like juicy grace on a bun all had one thing in common: they radiated some kind of energy and purpose, an inner light, a joy that wasn’t a scary-ebullient “Up With People” kind of joy, but a down deep This All Has Meaning And I’m Glad to Be Here Despite All the Hills and Valleys I’ve Been Up And Down joy. They seemed like they were carrying an interesting story around with them; you wanted to stop them and say, “Would you tell me your story?” You knew it would be good, because they have obviously been paying attention to life and weaving some sense out it.

These folks weren’t necessarily smiling up a storm, they just looked alive and attentive. One heavyset, middle-aged woman who was no one’s idea of a traditional beauty looked like so much fun wearing a jaunty beret and driving in traffic on the expressway with an expression of total patience, good-naturedness and openness. I wanted to wave at her just for fun but I didn’t want to weird her out or cause her to wrack her brain for the rest of the evening going, “Who the HECK was that woman in the Honda who waved at me? Do I know her?”

Wouldn’t it be great if ministers were the kind of people who looked open, attentive, full of joy, humor and brimming with good stories? Instead of so often dragging around exhausted, put-upon, drab, completely lost in church concerns and obviously having totally lost perspective and connection to the larger world outside the parish? I’m not picking on you, kittens — I’ve been there, too and I have the photos to prove it. I’m just asking all of us to consider: when someone sees us walking by in the store, striding down the hospital corridor, or driving by on the expressway, what are we communicating non-verbally through our facial expressions, posture and demeanor? What would it take for you to look like juicy grace on a bun? Does your outward bearing betray the fact that you’re BFFs with the Light of the World? Let it shine, boys and girls. Let it shine.