Beauty Tips for Ministers

UU Blogger Awards

Dumplings!

Who makes you laugh and makes you cringe? Who is your devoted stage mother, wanting to send you out there looking like the star you are? Who noodges to sit up when you when you slump, and who risks eye infections to find just the right mascara for you at Sephora? Who answers your e-mails with personal suggestions for the best outfit ideas for candidating week, and who shops not only for her own clothing and accessories but always with YOU in mind?

PeaceBang, that’s who!

And who writes about all of this in such a way that inspires you to be a bit snazzier and more confident than you might otherwise have been, and who nags you in such dulcet tones that you cannot ignore her message of taking your ministerial image seriously? Moi, darlings. C’est moi.

So run on over to the UU Blogger Awards , won’t you, and show some love by voting for PeaceBang in the categories of Best Anecdote or Narrative (what that means is beyond me, but how nice to be nominated for it!), Best Use of Visuals, Best Minister’s Blog and Best Writing.

You don’t need to be a Unitarian Universalist, darlings, you just have to be a loyal reader who would like to cast your vote. And PeaceBang thanks you.

The Dish

The dish is, gang, that I’m real serious with a fella, but I can’t give you any more details than that because while there is a mutual feeling of having found “the one” (a phrase which still makes me barf, but it’s the easiest way to explain what’s going on), this is a time of finding out how it will all work. We are dealing with a very skittish spinster here, and I want to make sure he really means it when he claims that all he wants in life now is to be a one-man Ministerial Love and Support Committee.

Let me just say that this is a #1 super numero uno awesome dude. You know how I know? Because not only does he have 100% of the qualities you would list if you were looking for a great man, he let me persuade him to change his hair product use (it was a struggle, but I knew I’d prevail if I whined enough), and to start using skin products and to pick out all his new winter clothes. If anything could win the heart of PeaceBang, it is this. Because it takes a real man to admit that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if he started moisturizing.

PB On Vay-Kay

Darlings,

I will be in Florida for the next ten days, resting, reading and TESTING PRODUCTS! YES! I got a whole slew of wonderful little packets from Sephora in the mail today and I will be slathering my skin and hair with all manner of interesting potions to let you know if they’re any good. I will also report on the new very chic eyeshadow color, peacock green, because this is the kind of risk I am willing to take for YOU. If I look like a crazy woman, who cares? I’ll be in Florida! But I’ve been intrigued by this color ever since I saw it on the Emily character in “The Devil Wears Prada” and I’m dying to try it for myself.

Guys, I received a sample of Armani Code fragrance and all I can say, if you plan on wearing this around me I hope you can run fast, because I won’t hold myself responsible for my actions. That stuff could make any New England spinster steamy on a cold January night. On the right man, I tell you: we are cooking with gas. Owwww!

Ta-ta for now, darlings. Be good. No wearing of enormous chalice pendants over ponchos while I’m away. Don’t make me send out my flying monkeys.

PeaceBang Is 42!

PeaceBang’s Forty-Two Random Smidgens of Wisdom Upon Turning Forty-Two

1. Eye cream. Every day.
2. Stretching and exercise. Every day, one or the other (not that I practice what I preach here, darlings, I’m just dolin’ out the advice, not necessarily taking it).
3. Love your body. You may berate it for not looking right in any of the outfits you’re trying on that day, but you may not curse it naked, for it is your home. It is your soft little spaceship. Speak kindly to it and of it.
4. That said, there’s no reason to go about naked in broad daylight or bedroom light unless you’re inordinately confident. That’s why God made candles.
5. Change your hairstyle now and then.

6. Get out of ruts: just because you’re absolutely certain you look TERRIBLE in brown doesn’t mean a thing. It’s just a belief you have; you could be really wrong, and you probably are. Go try on something brown. It wouldn’t kill you.
7. Get really serious about retirement funds. Advocate for yourself financially, ’cause honey, ain’t no one gonna do that for you.
8. Some people are emotional nightmares, vampires, and some people are just difficult but worth the trouble. Learn the tell the difference, choose wisely, and eject the vampires from your life. Remember that difficult people are often the most creative, challenging and interesting. Be cautious in relationship with them, but hold on for the ride.
9. When people who don’t really know you think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and fawn over you or conversely, think you’re devil spawn, there’s projection going on. For this reason, don’t take people’s reactions to you, good or bad, too personally.
10. Attend to your own addictions. Like, quit smoking, for God’s sake. What has a cigarette ever done for you but try to kill you?

11. Get a yearly mammogram; if you’re a guy, get checked for prostate cancer. Don’t avoid the doctor, and start keeping well-organized health records if you don’t already. Note chronic conditions on a calendar in the bathroom so you can accurately report to your doctor, rather than saying things like, “I feel like I get heartburn a lot” or “I get migraines.” When, precisely? How many days this month? Under what circumstances? This information will be very helpful in getting the best care.
12. Take care of your teeth. Plaque in the mouth can wind up in the arteries and cause heart problems. Floss every day.
13. Find a deep spiritual path that makes serious demands of you and be obedient to it.
14. It’s up to you to get enough sleep. Don’t play the dangerous game of bragging how you never get enough rest. This is an American disease of workaholism, competitiveness and punishing schedules. See that you get sufficient sleep; your body needs it.
15. Have someone or something in your life to which you can rise every morning and say, “I love you” and mean it with all your heart. Allow yourself to receive unconditional love in return (hint: from my life experience, I’ve learned that only God loves us perfectly — your mileage may vary). Practice this just like you’d practice mastering an instrument. Your life depends on it

16. Make arrangements for your own memorial service, just in case. Hope you don’t need it for another 42 years at least, and consider that you’re statistically likely to be about exactly halfway through this pilgrimage: congratulations for making it this far
17. “Love is the drug.” Surround yourself with people with whom you can share a reciprocal relationship of respect and nurture, and with whom you can share your authentic self without fear that your frailties will ever be used in an abusive way against you.
18. Know thyself, and make no apologies for the good gift God has made in you. You will progress in your own soul’s time, not anyone else’s.
19. Say “thank you” about three times more often than you feel is necessary.
20. Mentor the next generation. If you’ve earned any wisdom or expertise at all by now, it’s your responsibility to share it with them, and to help them get started.

21. Saying “yes” when you deeply want to say “no” will not make anyone love you more, it will just make you resentful and exhausted. Don’t let your ego needs override your soul needs.
22. Buy flowers for yourself.
23. Relationships are not about someone making you happy, but about two people having an opportunity to practice the spiritual discipline of love. It is not anyone’s job or responsibility to make you happy, not even your spouse’s.
24. Support your local community theatre. The people on that stage are bringing that story to life for the love of it, as volunteers. There is ritual and magic and transformation in the theatre; it can be very much like a worship service. If you attend the theatre, you will understand liturgy all the better.
25. If you are a caregiver, budget enough money every year for your own self-care, and that includes vacations, massages, nights out with friends, manicures, acupuncture, Reiki, whatever it takes. Keep receipts and share them with the people responsible for determining your compensation for the year. Keeping a caregiver in decent working order can get very expensive.

26. Plan ahead. Have a vision, and when it no longer excites you or demands your deepest, most valuable inner resources, revise it.
27. Read, read, read. Never stop learning, and pursue knowledge outside your comfort zone — it uses new parts of your brain, and that’s a good thing.
28. Avoid jealous people. Seek out those who take pleasure in other’s accomplishments.
29. Love your congregation or leave it. To continue to serve an institution that you viscerally dislike on a consistent basis (not just during occasional times of conflict or special difficulty) is fraudulent. Have some integrity and get another job.
30. Don’t expect people outside the ministry to understand it, or to respect that it is the center of your life or what that means.

31. Start a good, intuitive system of organizing your work life early on in your career, and keep up with it.
32. If God is real in your life, don’t ever apologize for that to those for whom God is not real in order to seem more sophisticated or “cool.”
Likewise, don’t be a proseletyzing pain in the buns, either, because no one wants to hear it. “May your life speak more loudly than your lips.”
33. The devil is in the details. The angels are there, too.
34. Know your gifts, and know your limitations and weak spots. Offer your gifts freely and work hard at becoming better at what you do well, and shower appreciation and support on those whose skills and gifts make up for your deficiencies, especially in the workplace.
35. Give people your full attention. Careful, attentive listening is an act of love.
36. Chronic lateness is a form of passive-aggression. It says, “My time is more important than yours.” Apologize for being late. Honor other people’s time.
37. Everyone is artistic in some way. Find a way to incorporate art into your life.
38. Make your home a sanctuary. If you have kids, good luck with this one.
39. Speak up when you need to (and you do need to), but try not to be obnoxious about it.
40. What you eat really does have a huge influence on your health and well-being, but keep it simple. Trying to follow several different complicated, faddish, esoteric food plans over the years is an almost certain recipe for irritating others and wasting your own time and money.
41. If you can’t comfortably eat dinner alone in a restaurant by the time you’re forty, what are you so afraid of?
42. You’re not required to like birthday cake. You may, at 42, find that you are ready to admit that you hate birthday cake, and would, in, fact prefer 12 perfectly friend buffalo chicken wings as the finale to your birthday dinner. If you’re not a little bit eccentric by the time you’re 42, you’re probably not very interesting. Go for it. Be yourself.

Laughter, love, and understanding! Photo taken at Tapeo Restaurant in Boston, Friday, Jan. 11th, 2008 with Michael and Paul.

Suzani

Beauty!

I fell in love with suzani, which I think is the Persian word for embroidery, on a trip to New York last spring. The Uzbeki people are best known for their tradition of suzani, and I like to go on ebay and lust after some of the works.

But for my 42nd birthday, I thought I would bid on a piece, and here it is:

I will hang it on my bedroom wall as a kind of headboard and it will look so beautiful on my butter-yellow walls. I’m changing my bedroom from kind of French provincial colors (blue toile curtains, yellow roses, lots of angel images and baby/family photos on the wall) to ethnic eclectic. No more angels, no more baby/family photos on the walls, images from my travels, vivid colors (except the bedding, which shall always remain cream and white, with buttery yellow accents), and hopefully, this suzani to bring even more texture and sense of rich beauty to the space. I’m telling you because like any good UU I’m pre-emptively guilty about conditions in Uzbekistan — please don’t tell me that women are embroidering these under sweat shop conditions! This one is antique, I think.

And if you feel like making a contribution to PeaceBang’s Birthday Gift because she’s been such a help to you lately, drop a few pennies in the PayPal basket!

Advent Hiatus

Angels, as you know, PeaceBang has chronic anxiety and panic disorder that she is still trying to understand and get cured of. This battle has gone badly lately and so, on doctor’s suggestion to cut everything out of my life — even things that I love (!)– that aren’t absolutely necessary to my daily schedule (with time out for exercise, which I do NOT love), I have decided to take a blogging hiatus.

The reasoning goes like this: if so many things in my life are stimulating, energizing and inspiring (ministry, school, relationships, music, etc.), perhaps it would be good to carve out more space for things that are calming, emptying and maybe even dull? Certainly this season, at any rate.

When Pan and I stop making out so often, I’ll be back.
For now, God bless us, everyone.

Go be beautiful.