Hello darlings!
PB is just breezing by in the midst of a very busy season!
Crazy, ain’t it? Not only is Easter early this year, Miss Springtime seems to be waiting in the wings with a case of stage fright while Ole Man Winter continues his not-so soft shoe all over the Northeast. I’m trying to be cute and light-hearted about it but the truth is we’re ready to lose our minds over here in Southeast Massachusetts. It’s like, if I go out to my car one. more. bloody. morning. and see snow on the windshield or hear word of ONE. MORE. DAMN. STORM…. As Mama Honey Boo Boo would say, “You got to COME ON NOW!”
We’re holding on. No kidding, it has been hard. We have felt a tremendous amount of vulnerability in our communities and have faced some really scary conditions. Disruptions galore. Our woods and yards are devastated. It will be a serious clean-up effort this spring.
So let’s not talk about that right now! Let’s talk about FORMAL OCCASIONS! Like the ordination I just attended this past weekend. I was so happy to meet several of my devoted BTFM pigeons in real time, and deeply gratified at the soul level to see them wearing proper footwear and stockings. You do me so proud, pigeons!
But hold onto your coffee mugs everyone, because PeaceBang is going to lay down a law here:
WE WEAR STOCKINGS OR SOCKS AT FORMAL OCCASIONS.
WE DO NOT SLIP ON CASUAL FLATS OR SPORTY SHOES WITH CLERICAL VESTMENTS AND PROCESS INTO THE CHURCH WITH OUR BARE ANKLES SHOWING.
An ordination is a formal event. Any time we are asked to participate in a ritual known as a processional, we are attending a formal event and representing not just our cute, casual selves, but the Clergy as a whole. Whether or not we are saying a word in the service, we are fulfilling a symbolic function (as well as a collegial and ecclesiastical one) and casual footwear does not cut it. Lather, rinse and repeat for all rites of passage.
A formal event calls not only for appropriate footwear and socks or stockings but for intentional grooming of the hair and face. Formal occasions call for photo-ready clergy. Again, again and again, PeaceBang despairs that there are blotchy faces, red winter noses and shiny foreheads on display along with bare feet in casual shoes and hair that hasn’t seen a brush in many hours (or what my favorite bloggers TLo call “yoga hair”). Those of us who will be appearing in historical photographs should make some effort beyond just showing up and throwing on our robes and stoles. Is there some theological issue with hair conditioner that I don’t know about? Is a little lipstick or concealer so much to ask? Would it kill you to call your mother once in awhile? Sorry, I get carried away.
Given that I arrived late to the service and literally threw on my robe and zipped it while running from the car to join my colleagues in the queue outside the church, I ain’t one to talk. I was having a bad hair day and my chignon wound up looking like I had an Easter egg tucked under it, a detail I failed to notice until I saw photos. I can only assume that one hundred years from now, people will think that we did our hair that way on purpose. I just don’t want any of us to be caught on film looking well-nigh bedraggled. These occasions are serious and important. Let’s look it, from head to toe.
Congratulations to the impeccably groomed new Rev.
I’m pretty sure I saw a few pictures of you at said ordination, and I’m absolutely certain that you looked fabulous and professional.
I also need to report that I spied a “Beard Grooming Studio” today. I hadn’t noticed one before, and was elated that my male friends now have a special place to go for their grooming needs.
May spring arrive for you soon.
Love and citrus blossoms from LA. xo
Thank you, as ever, PB, for encouraging — yea, chastising! — us to look our very professional best at all times, especially in formal occasions. Amen and amen! That said, I must speak up for those of us with medical conditions that prevent us from looking our best. In my case, it is a blotchy complexion related to medication I must take that no amount of make-up or dermatological interventions can ever cover. This is made worse by partial facial paralysis, which gives me a distinctly odd speaking pattern. I cannot smile, as if I were the victim of a bad Botox job! If it weren’t so humiliating for just that reason, it would be funny.I have been to, I am not kidding, hundreds of consultations with dermatologists, professional make-up artists, etc. and not one of them has been able to solve my complexion dilemma. (The paralysis is beyond repair.) Just today, two strangers approached me to ask why my face was so red and offered unsolicited advice on how I could improve my appearance, including some wildly off-the-mark medical advice. (I am a physician as well as a minister, so I was astonished by this behavior and quickly corrected these well-intentioned but ill-advised strangers.) I’m a grown-up and have reasonably high self-esteem, but I confess that those encounters left me as embarrassed and as self-conscious as a teenager with a ravaging case of acne. So when you spy some of us with red noses and blotchy skin peeking through our meticulously, laboriously applied make-up, sisters and brothers, please do no assume that we haven’t tried. Lord knows, we’ve tried! God bless all of you making our professional look good, from the inside out! Kisses of peace all around. [Oh, how awful! I’m so sorry! I had an elder come up to me at coffee hour, point up and down at my new jacket and pronounce, “I don’t approve of these horizontal stripes.” I thought it was hilarious because I know and love this woman for many years, but NO ONE enjoys unsolicited criticism. I dare say there is a obvious difference to me between a well-groomed cleric with an irritated skin condition and one who simply hasn’t attended to that little details that one does to prepare for a formal occasion. One can see the polished effort in the former and the lack thereof in the latter. Bless. – PB]