Posted on

Nightmare Headshots: Don’t Let This Be You!

Darlings,

It’s such a good idea to have a professional quality headshot of yourself for those times you’ll be appearing in a brochure, catalog or flier. Do get someone to take one for you and keep it on hand, and better out-of-date than to have nothing appropriate at all.

Give some thought to how you want to look in that photo. Do you want to be in natural lighting or inside in the church? Do you want to be wearing vestments, a suit, or something more casual? What image do you want to project? It’s a great idea to have a few options so you can pick and choose.

PeaceBang herself has a decent photo taken in the church in 3/07 by the producer of “Nightline” (on nothing more fancy than PB’s digital camera) and a “personality” headshot suitable for theatre lobbies, but nothing formal. She is reminding herself that she needs to do something about this.

That said, PeaceBang has just run into two ministerial headshots that caused her to gasp in dismay. In one, a middle-aged woman is hunched down in the frame smiling tentatively, her hair laying (lying? grammar geeks, do tell) in lank pools around her shoulders. She appears to have no neck whatsoever. Her head is at an awkward angle and her skin is a very angry shade of pink; a case not of Rouge Abuse but of a naturally ruddy complexion. It is a terrible, sloppy photograph that never should have been used for any professional use, and which badly undermines this person’s efforts to promote herself as a leader. Don’t let this happen to you, sugarplum fairies!

The second consternation-causing photograph I found online tonight features a middle-aged male pastor looking dead-on into the camera lens and leaning forward with a smiling expression of such insecure need it’s as though he’s going to JUMP THROUGH THE LENS AND MAKE YOU LOVE HIM!! He is wearing a stole over street clothes (why, I have no idea — I wasn’t aware that sitting for an informal snapshot was a pastoral function). Does this photograph make me want to visit this minister’s church? Quite the opposite. In fact, it makes me want to RUN AWAY from fear, for the look in this man’s eyes and his posture give me the distinct feeling that he has serious boundary issues, and that’s no laughing matter.

Some tips for informal photos to be used for promotional materials:

1. Sit up straight!!! and find a good, relaxed angle.
2. Practice your smile. Some people grimace and look pained when they pose for photos, some smile with their tongue between their teeth. There’s no shame in finding a nice smile.
3. If photographing in color, take some test shots to see that your skin tone and make-up look right.
3. Take a lot of photos: this image is IMPORTANT! Do not feign modesty and walk away after the first snap. You are responsible for your public image — take the time and effort to get something good. If you use digital it’s no trouble at all to take two dozen photos in different poses and facial expressions, download them and choose the best.
4. For God’s sake, fix your hair!
5. Gents, if you’re being photographed in a suit in a seated position, pull the jacket down and smooth it so the shoulders aren’t bunched up.
6. Ask someone with good aesthetic sense to be your stylist for the occasion. They can keep a critical eye on bad hair, wrinkled or bunched clothing and give you someone to smile AT, which makes your expression ever so much more genuine.

Go be beautiful!

Posted on

Christmas Gaudery

Thank GOD Regina had the good sense not to don tacky Christmas sequins and reindeers in PUBLIC and to have it captured on videotape for her congregation’s holiday greeting. Regina, I am rushing off to the gym so won’t be able to give this the attention it deserves but for the rest of you, hear ye, hear ye. She writes,

My church pastors (I am one,and the only female) recently filmed a Christmas greeting to be aired on local cable channels. We were invited to dress in our holiday finery (read: felt appliques, sequins, beading — gawdy!!). I do own some of these, but couldn’t bring myself to put them on. Probably your influence caused me to question the appropriateness of this kind of dress for this occasion. Your thoughts??

Congratulations! PeaceBang pops a cork for you, Regina, my queen. How WISE of you to understand that while Christmas is a time for tacky excess and sartorial tragedy in the secular world, it is a time for church people to remain calm, cool and centered in Christ. By all means wear a pretty red scarf tucked inside your suit or an elegant snowflake pin, but hold it at that. Why in the name of Balthazar should a pastor wear tinfoil decorations hanging from her earlobes or a big, ugly poinsettia sweater and look like the rest of the frantic, festivity-desperate folks out there when she has the Reason For the Season close at hand and heart every day of the year?

Yes, that was a breathless run-on sentence, but you must understand how ARDENTLY PeaceBang desires you, my reverend pigeons, to remember who and what you are and are not at this season. I learned this lesson most beautifully in 1997 when I was in seminary and went on silent retreat on Christmas Day to grieve the loss of the holiday (I knew that leading two Christmas Eve services would leave me in no condition to travel the next day to spend time with my family) and to transfer my Xmas expectations from presents to Presence.
I spent three nights in silence with the Cistercian sisters in Wrentham, MA, who treated Christmas Day as just another day to praise God and adore Christ. After vespers I went for a walk and saw their only concession to the holiday: at the top of their barn was a simple, pure, 4′ lit-up star.

O Holy Night!

This isn’t to say that I gave up entirely on Santa from that point on, you understand. I mean, a girl can’t give up on Santa. A little bling at the holidays never hurt anyone, and I’m sure a gift certificate to Sephora or Ulta isn’t going to endanger anyone’s immortal soul, either. Everything in moderation, dumplings, even moderation.

Posted on

Jeepers, Creepers, What Should She Wear On Her Peepers?

It must be Accessories Week here at BTFM, because you kids are positively CRAWLING out of the woodwork with fascinating questions about hats, eyeglasses and whatnot. What will it be next? PeaceBang lives for the suspense, and imagines that her next letter might be about watch fobs or suspenders! My heavens! For now, let’s consider this frantic inquiry:

Since I have crossed over into having to wear READING GLASSES even though my eyes still feel like they are 16, I am wondering what PB has to say about clergy reading glasses? Even though I blow what I can up into 16 point font, there are times I need the glasses in worship. I just saw a picture of me presiding during communion with my little granny peepers, and I thought, oh dear sweet Jesus, those glasses make me look 58 instead of 44, which is the last thing to be thinking about when celebrating the great thanksgiving…but I am thinking…there has got to be some cool options …well, you know what I mean. Help!

Honey pie, I know you and there is no way you look 58 EVAH, and if you did momentarily, who cares? By all means go ahead and invest in a pair of snazzy reading glasses if this is going to be part of your ministerial image (and let’s be honest, don’t our eyes generally get worse over time?), but consider also the rocking Emma Goldman and her fierce specs:emma-glasses.gif

Check it out. Think of how brainy and rabbinical you can look with some old-school reading glasses! I say GO for it with dignified gusto. The only hideous mistake we can make with glasses, I think, is to get cutesy with them with frou-frou on the holders or to plop them on top of our head during formal events and treat them like jewelry. Also, Dame Edna. You don’t want to get into what she calls “furniture for the face” (bless her heart, how I adore her). But really. What would Harry Potter be without his big horn-rims? What would John Lennon have been without his granny glasses? What would that hot guy I saw at the coffee shop today be without his bald head and muscular forearms? Oops, PeaceBang is distracted again. Gotta run, darlings, there’s more mail to answer and a load of laundry to get to bed.

Posted on

Bibles Are NOT An Accessory, But…

Bethany still wants to get some suggestions for nice-looking Bibles to take with her on pastoral visits.
She writes,

OK, so perhaps the Bible was never meant to be a fashion accessory, but I went searching for a pretty/cute, respectable, appropriate-sized Bible to take on pastoral visits – and also for funerals.

There were some nice choices in “less official” translations, but I could not find anything remotely fun for the NRSV.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help! Love your blog!!

(here’s a link to a wonderful looking Bible – wrong translation)

PeaceBang would like to confess right here that she, too, has perused the religious bookstores looking for a pretty Bible. And why not? I have seven or eight big, weighty tomes in my study at church and at home, as do you, and they’re just not something a pastor can throw in his or her bag and tote down the corridors of the hospital without looking like Quasimodo (and developing some of his same back problems). I have two pocket New Testament/Psalms Bibles, one in a brown suede cover that my colleague referred to as “the touchy-feely Bible.” My favorite, though, is about 4″ high, NRSV, covered in cordovan-colored leather. It just fits my hand, I carry it with me on all flights and trips and best of all, the font is big enough to read. It doesn’t have any of that distracting red letter nonsense, and the pages are real pages rather than onion skin. I pet it and say “Don’t tell the others but you are my favorite.”

It’s funny, though, isn’t it, how we fall in love with different Bibles at different points in our lives? I will always adore my sturdy, be-ribboned HarperCollins Study Bible given me by my friend Timothy Holder when we were at Harvard together. It is inscribed in his bold handwriting, “To Princess Victoria of Cambridge, My love forever, Tim” and dated March 15, 1995. He went on to have a wild and bold ministry that I greatly admire, so having this Bible on my desk reminds me that I want to be like Petunia when I grow up.

Lately there’s the NIV by bedside that made the book of Acts come alive for me for the first time, so I cherish it, too. It’s not all that pretty; just a big brown thing with nice silver font on the front, but it has presence. It is the handsomest Bible to my eyes right now because I associate it with a lovely Christian community I worshiped with this summer. It is published by Zondervan, the same people who put out a little booklet about Unitarian Universalism as a dangerous cult. I should ardently dislike the folks at Zondervan but I don’t. I actually kind of liked their little booklet; they at least paid UUs the compliment of taking us seriously, and they had a much better grip on our theological tradition than do many active Unitarian Universalists!

So Bethany, my dove, I’m afraid you’ll get no real help from me. Perhaps our other readers have lovely little Bibles they can recommend. My only commitment is not to purchase Bibles or Bible-covers that have huge crosses on them. The Bible is not a Christian book: it begins, lest we forget, with the Jewish Scriptures. And since I am not a supercessionist Christian, I choose not to prominently feature a Christian symbol on my bible. I am not offended by those who do, it is just a commitment of my own that honors my Jewish heritage and the theological pluralism to which my religious movement is committed.

Posted on

Your Black Tie Options

Pumpkins, just got this inquiry:

I’m sorry we didn’t connect at GA…but I have a perfect “beauty tip for ministers conundrum.” I will be offering the before dinner prayer and a benediction at a black tie gala in December. Yes, lucky me. But, I need something to wear. Evening dresses all either look too bare or too mother of the bride. I’d like to look stylish and chic, but still appropriately ministerial. Advice welcome!

And you shall HAVE it, then, honored lady!

Now let’s face it: ministers are not black-tie event people, not really. We’re simply not wealthy enough to get invited to these things as guests to be feted and fawned over so that we’ll write a big check to the hosting organization or persons. When we get invited to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Gottrocks, it’s because of our position, not our bank accounts. We’re there to lend clerical sobriety to the undertaking, to give the blessing and the benediction as though to insinuate that God is so on board with this occasion, we can at any moment expect five thousand-dollar bills to come fluttering down from heaven by way of confirmation. As an extra bonus for our presence we get to eat lots of shrimp horse-divorce and talk Theology 101 with the upper crust for hours (“You say you’re spiritual but not religious? Isn’t that fascinating. I’ve never heard that before; DO expound while I get another champagne cocktail!”). PeaceBang is always of two minds when receiving a swanky invite. Part of her can’t wait to dress up and be fancy for an evening while the other part of her groans and tries to climb into the cabinet under the kitchen sink (They Will Never Find Me Among The Clorox!).

All that being said, dear Ms. H., you don’t have to wear true black tie. You don’t have to wear one of those dreary Vaguely-Related-To-The-Mother-of-the-Bride get-ups and you certainly shouldn’t appear in anything like an evening gown (save that for when you’re somewhere fancy and fun and can do plunging decolletage and no one even knows you’re clergy). I recommend three options for your consideration:

1. A very expensive (by pastor’s standards), very gorgeous black suit with fabulous dressy pumps (even with a bit of bling factor). Carry a smashing clutch purse and wear the most elegant pearls you can beg, borrow or steal. Get your hair done. Splurge on a Chanel lipstick; you’ll feel rich. Wear a huge cocktail ring. The idea here is “I’m not trying to do actual black tie, I’m the PARSON, for God’s sake. But I am doing a bit of glam because I understand where I am.”

2. A very gorgeous, perfectly cut black jacket of some kind (I have one that was a pretty standard black blazer but I bought some smashing black jet buttons in Italy and had them sewn on, now the jacket is swellegant) and a long, very formal skirt and open-toed shoes. Some bling at the neck and ears, and you’re on.

3. If you would like to draw attention to yourself and your True Holiness, go in a plain black dress, an everyday jacket you would wear to church meetings, and scuffed Danskos. This communicates, “I’m not even trying to keep up with the Joneses here. I represent the Church and its values. So in an “up-yours” gesture of social defiance and judgment of all you materialistic sinners, I will sit here and eat your food and drink your cocktails and respond to this honor by looking like a frump.” You can tell how PeaceBang feels about that third option, can’t you, dears?

PeaceBang recommends that every one of us have some Appropriate For Black Tie articles ready to go in our closets and that we should not think of updating them more than every 5-10 years. They should be CLASSICS and very, very fine. This is the sort of thing you comb the sale racks for in search of gems and you buy them when you find them.

For years I wore a violently pink, beautiful ankle length chiffon skirt (sounds hideous, but was really lovely) and my black Italian button jacket to fancy ‘dos. I haven’t been to anything that dressy for a long time and I’m not sure what I would wear if I got an invitation. Probably a black suit with my old stand-by sequined black shell, a huge cocktail ring, glam make-up and I’d go pick up a pair of hideously painful and gorgeous heels from DSW Shoe Warehouse. So you’ve reminded me, Deb, to keep my eye out for a dressy skirt or a pair of really nice, crepe slacks. In dress wear, you can’t fake it. Fabrics, cut and fit are everything. Some things that are inappropriate for black tie events (for women): sensible shoes, Timex wristwatches (leave it off if you don’t have a dressy watch), cotton anything, floral prints, knee-length skirts (although a knee-length LBD is fine if you’re gaminesque), business separates. Think taffeta, think dupioni silk, think bugle beads, think impeccably done hair and make-up, think manicure with short, wine red nails. Think clutch bag (NOT shoulder bag!!), think cashmere wrap or dressy shawl rather than coat.
Gentlemen: if you don’t have a smashing black suit that fits you like a dream and you don’t wear clericals, just rent a tux. Seriously. Then work it and make it yours.