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When Bloomies Blows Your Serenity

Dear ones,

PeaceBang has been fairly DELUGED with marvelous queries this week, and she promises to get to them when she has just a wee bit more energy.

Do not despair! We will address holy-holey boyfriend shoes, GA wear, candidating togs and all other manner of your fabulousness when the Holy Spirit comes and hits PeaceBang upside the head and says, “Get back to work, girl! Your faithful readers need you!”

But right now, how can PeaceBang give you advice on being your best most radiant self and emitting the thrilling energy of the contemporary church when she has four broken nails, Walter Mondale bags under her eyes, and a desire to wrap herself in this for a few days, or until we’re out of this Arctic blast:

personcozy?

What a nice pedicure!

I had to walk through Bloomingdale’s on my way to Sephora today to return a product (a fragrance by Fresh that I mistook for the delicious V-Tonic they issued last year, but which turned out to smell like Lemon Pledge) and thought, oh my heavens. Oh MY HEAVENS. Look at all the women in this place who are very seriously shopping for $600 shoes as though those shoes were really very seriously important. This is a problem. Not only is it rampant materialism at its saddest (“salvation through Salvatore Ferragamo!”), the shoes this season aren’t even that great! Once you’ve seen the doyennes of Chestnut Hill, MA squeeze their toes into patent leather peep-toe spectator pumps, you just can’t muster quite the same sense of fun about them as you did when you saw them featured in Glamour, if you know what I mean.

Those gals were shopping for shoes with the kind of earnestness most people reserve for reciting their wedding vows. You want to know where to evangelize, people? Try the shoe department at Bloomingdales. I remember once seeing an want ad for a MALL CHAPLAIN. To this day I have no idea what the job entails but I always imagined that the Mall Chaplain would be there to help you through buyer’s remorse, and lead you to confront which of your soul’s deepest desires those Cole-Haan loafers were supposed to fill. Does anyone out there know what a Mall Chaplain really does?

ANYhoo, duckies, the point is that PeaceBang is a bit tired and cranky and if she can’t even get a kick out of Spying For the House of the LORD in the Bloomie’s shoe department, what GOOD is she?

You be wonderful and vibrant, won’t you, while mother has a nice little nap.

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When You Write To Me

My darling readers,

I love that you read this blog, I love that you comment on this blog, I love that you write to me off-line and ask wonderful questions or make wonderful suggestions about this topic.
I don’t love the fact that I lose some of your e-mails or accidentally delete them, or just plain miss them, or just plain don’t get back to you.

If you write to me off-line and don’t hear back from me, please don’t take it personally, and please submit your inquiry again if it’s a pressing matter. This isn’t so much a time management issue as it is a “bumbling with technology” issue. It takes very little time to respond, so don’t hesitate to write in!

UU Momma, you are one example of someone whose e-mail I lost and I wanted to say “hi” and “How nice to know who you are, and love your blog!”

Kiss of peace and blessed Sabbath to you all,
PB

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Television-Induced Existential Crisis

Hello in a post-Oscar moment before heading off to bed, powder pigeons!

I watched the entire telecast at my friends’ house, on one of those ginormous flat-screen TVs that make you feel as though you are THERE.

I thought that almost all the stars look smashing this year, but I didn’t much enjoy the show. It dragggggged. The Al Gore moment was lovely, and I was so happy for Jennifer Hudson, Forrest Whittaker and Martin Scorcese. I adore Helen Mirren.

It occurred to me watching the Oscars that I just don’t watch television very much at all, and the vast majority of my encounters with pop culture come through the internet or brief interludes with magazines — usually in the line at the grocery store.

So I suffered an anxiety attack right there in M and P’s living room realizing that I am going to be on television — a medium I don’t really have any meaningful connection to!

I believe that this little flurry of attention is related to the mistaken impression people have that we clergy are remote creatures, too busy being super-duper holy to be fully engaged in the world the way “ordinary” people are. You know, I know, and God knows that we’re not superduper holy, we’re not remote, and we’re not disengaged from the real world as lay people know it. Like everyone else, we’re trying to juggle all our responsibilities in life, with the added layer of attending people through the spiritual journey and speaking a word of hope and grace on Sunday mornings. We’re trying to figure out how to communicate through our appearance some of the relevancy and vibrancy we believe is present in the contemporary Church.

How can we do things like connect to pervasive forces like television while still honoring the essential aspect of our calling? Television requires sound bites: ministers don’t think, speak or live in sound bites. Television says, “entertain me!” and ministers don’t entertain, we engage. (I mean, I certainly intend to entertain you as PeaceBang, but you’re not the general public. This conversation is by us, for us, and about us, darlings!).

And yet we must be willing to reach people through popular media. If you had a few moments of time on national television, what message about the vitality of liberal religious life would you want to communicate? I’ve got my talking points ready (hint: it’s not actually fashion we care about so much as better managing our complicated role and image in our churches and in society), but I’d love to hear some of yours.



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PeaceBang Will Make You Famous!!

Darlings, PeaceBang seems poised to have fifteen minutes of fame. Or maybe just fifteen seconds. Whatever the case, she is tentatively excited by the fact that an esteemed journalist from the Boston Globe has interviewed her and is planning to do a story on her Glamorous Life of Blogging. Which, as you know, IS deeply glamorous. As subsequent photos will undoubtedly show, PeaceBang blogs in a tiara and a bugle-beaded gown and always has at least a dozen yellow roses on her Chippendale desk as she composes these posts — all memorable, all profound.

THAT said, the Globe reporter would very much like to speak with some of you about WHY in the name of God you read this blog, and whether or not it has HELPED you in your quest for a lovelier, more polished public image, and whatever else you would care to tell him, for instance, how you plan to invite PeaceBang to your waterfront summer home because you adore her that much.

If you’d be so inclined to participate in the story, please indicate your willingness in the comments section, and I will forward your e-mail address to the appropriate place.

Ta-ta, dears. PeaceBang is rather a nervous wreck about all of this, but she is willing to be brave for The Cause.*

*The de-frumpification of the American clergy.

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You LIKE Me! You Really LIKE Me!

My darling and devoted powder pigeons!! Pardon me while I wipe tears from my face and compose myself!

What joy to have won three awards from the recent UU Blog Awards! http://uupdates.net/uublogawards/winners/2007
Your humble and holy beauty correspondent has won,

Best Writing
Best New Blog
Best Anecdote or Narrative, Best of Class (can someone explain that to me?)

from you! You! Aren’t you just TOO DEAR?

Now honestly, while PeaceBang might have dared hope to be acknowledged as Best New Blog, she hardly knows what to say about Best Writing. How did this happen? What does this mean? Is this evidence of a quiet rebellion among American clergypeople? I hear the cry of my people: “Enough theology, we want LIP GLOSS!”

Well, my loyalists, PeaceBang HEARS you. She will keep the frivolity and the lip gloss ALIVE on this blog. Others may delve into the deep waters of religious meaning, but PeaceBang will keep this space alive for product reviews, dishy exposes of What Not To Wear in the pulpit, and passionate ruminations about looking our very best while toiling in the vineyards of the Lord.

Bless your hearts.

I’d like to thank my sister Karen for saying to me last April, “You really need to start another blog just for all the beauty commentary.” She is the spiritual midwife to the madness that is Beauty Tips for Ministers, and we blow her kisses today.