I just get very depressed about this from time to time.
This is a time of year when, for many reasons, lots of clergy headshots and photos appear in my in-box. Brochures for conferences, announcements of new calls, seminarian graduations, ordinations, advocacy organizing days, special events, conferences, course offerings, calls for papers for this and that.
And I despair. For every great shot of a vibrant, alive, with-it looking person who looks like a leader with a vision, there are five of an incredibly drab person who looks like she hardly knows how to wash her face properly (or he). It’s just staggering. They don’t just look Not Their Best, they look terrible. Embarrassingly bad. As if the concept of aesthetics was totally foreign to them. And I think, “Do their churches look this untended? Are there yellowed brochures from 1973 still stuffed into the pew slots because no one cares? Is the lawn as scraggly as the pastor’s facial hair? Is it that these ministers don’t understand or that they don’t want to take responsibility for the fact that they are the FACE OF THE CHURCH??”
I make it a point to keep a chunk of my life totally unrelated to the Church for one reason: to maintain perspective. I never want to become one of those ostriches with her head in the sand, imagining that my tiny world of church life is all the world there is, and fantasizing that it revolves around me. This is the besetting sin of the vast majority of clergypeople I know, and it’s part of why they look so drab and outrageously out of touch. In some cases, they quite literally reek of mothballs. When I look at them I wonder if they’ve been toiling away at some underground cavern, some catacomb somewhere, bustling around with committee meetings, pastoral visits and preaching and never realizing that from the outside perspective, they look like crypt-keepers. Who wants to visit a crypt?? Who wants to visit an organization whose chosen leader’s physical appearance evokes the reaction, “Have you no self-respect, let alone respect for the organization you represent?”
The shabbiness!!! Frizzy hair pulled back in elastic, greasy skin, dark grey circles under the eyes, hair that looks like the pastor just got out of bed. Grown men in bangs. Lank bangs on women falling over one eye, tank tops, ill-fitting bras, men staring into the camera from behind enormous late 80’s spectacles with thumbprints smearing the lenses, crust in the corner of the eye, slumped posture. Shadows over faces, photos way out of focus, thick, filthy fingernails, young pastors dressed like slobs.
There is no excuse for this, and no sentimental interpretation should be acceptable to any of us. The enablers who insist that these are dear faces of hard-working toilers in God’s vineyard get no pass here. These are not the faces of hard-working toilers in God’s vineyard, these are the faces of people who are hiding from reality in God’s vineyard, who are counting on the compassionate virtues of the Church to remain quiet about their tacky or disheveled appearance. I know that we share stories here from time to time about over-involved parishioners who hurt our feelings by telling us to stand up straight, cut our hair or whatever, but at least those people are IN the church, are STAYING in the church, and are not taking one look at the frumpy pastor on the website and viscerally rejecting the whole institution.
I am holding in my hand a catalog from SERRV, a nonprofit organization that sells Fair Trade, hand-made, sustainably-crafted home goods and clothes. The artisans are Indian, African, Asian people who have very little money and no “wardrobe” to speak of, I’m sure. And yet they look proud, beautiful, decked out, put-together in a way that commands attention and communicates self-respect and love of beauty. It continues to disgust and astonish me that privileged First World men and women make excuses for their own slovenliness, and continue to protest that it really doesn’t matter.
Yes, it does matter.
At least make an effort. That’s all we can do. Those who refuse to make an effort – well, I just don’t know what to say to you anymore.
I TOTALLLY GET THIS! you go girl. keep up the good work of holding us all accountable. (sitting up straighter as she types this…)
Yes, yes, yes. You remind me of the comment about people who are “so heavenly minded they are no earthly good.” Ver few people look like they believe they are members of a royal priesthood, dedicated to a glorious God. Which is not to say I don’t occasionally sneak into the office without makeup or needing a haircut, but I certainly do try to remember that I am the face of my congregation for a good portion of the community.
Oh I feel your pain, but mainly in regards to websites, signs, newsletters etc. “marketing collatoral’ they call it. I am horrified by our church website – it says ‘We’re fruit loops who don’t have a clue about the modern world!!!’. I know all about the budget pressures, but to many people the website is an important way of checking out a church and deciding whether to visit. It should represent what the church is actually like.
Oh dear, now I say that, I think our church website *does* represent what our church is like. Hmm…
Susan’s comment reminds me of a belly-dancing workshop I attended at a Christian arts festival a couple of years back. The leader had us just walk barefoot round the room to start with and looked at us. After a couple of minutes she said something like “you know, to look at you no-one would believe that you are princesses, daughters of the living god and king of the universe – now try walking like it”. She claimed we all added 2cm to our hight. I deliberately flash back to that moment from time to time.
and further more the laity don’t have to go to church and they don’t have to contribute money so if the church looks like a lost cause and the rector looks disheveled it probably will be a lost cause sooner rather than later
I would just like to point out that perhaps you are speaking of the mainline church’s publications and clergy photo, becuase when my nondenominational brothers and sisters send out publications and invitations to hear people speak their head shots look, clean, professional and communicate the image they and their church are trying to achieve. Love em or not, they at least understand that we are a visual culture and have tapped into that for their success.
And keep up the good work. I pass along this site to fellow clergy and seminarians all the time!