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PeaceBang Preparing For Seminary Talk

I leave for The Big Apple tomorrow afternoon and am con much gusto looking forward to conversing with the Powder Pigeons at Union Theological Seminary.

What will we be talking about? Here is a weensie list of some of the things I intend to cover:

1. Taxes
2. The economy
3. The war in Iraq

…oops! I got confused for a moment! But you can betcha that, just like Sarah Palin, no matter what topics come up I will STICK TO MY TALKING POINTS.
And you know what they are, don’t you, PeaceBangers?

I. You can project an image consciously or you will most certainly project one unconsciously: what kind of image do you want to project?

II. Grooming matters. Details matter. Taking care with your appearance and making sure that you look like someone who lives in 2008 matters. These are not frivolous issues. Just as any leader in any public profession attends carefully to their appearance, so should we.

III. If your mouth is saying love, justice, holy, etc. and your body is saying schlep, unkempt, drab, dated (eg, “Woodstock refugee”) scraggly, neglected or just downright sick, people will read that unspoken message just as strongly as they hear your words.

Some of the questions I will be bringing to UTS

> How do you take care of yourself?
> What role does joy/humor/fun play in your life and in your ministry with your religious community?
> What visual images go along with your leadership style?
> What fears or anxieties do you have about becoming a religious leader in your context and at this point in history?
> What are your basic questions about dress, decorum, vestments, protocol, that I may be able to address?

See you there! I’ll have my camera so expect lots of fun photos soon!

Cripes, what am I gonna wear!!?? 🙂

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Can She Wear Gortex Boots To A Funeral?

No, she may not.

Pastors, please invest in a pair of clergy-appropriate all-weather boots. There will be occasions upon which you will actually be called out into rain and snow and ice to minister to people, and at those times there is no reason you should show up looking prepared to dig ditches or to lead them on a hiking expedition. Making a house call is one thing. Visiting the hospital is also one thing. Presiding over a commital of human remains is another thing entirely. When you are called up on to such sacred offices, please do NOT show up in
Gortex boots,
Boots with brown tops and white or tan rubber soles,
L.L. Bean duck boots
or colorful rain wellies.

You should own something like this,
(Le Canadienne, expensive)

Or something like this,

(Yes, I hate them too, but you don’t wear them with a skirt, for heaven’s sake)

Or for very outdoorsy types, even something like this by Columbia,

They’re really not dressy enough but at least they’re all black, you can’t see the drawstring under the pants, they won’t make you look unprepared and disrespectful, and like the other two options they are thoroughly waterproof.

I’ve had the same ugly black snowboots for eleven years. I have one ankle-length pair by Totes that I got for $9.99, and an ugly but very warm pair of knee-high black snow boots that I found for under $30 on a sale rack somewhere and can wear with skirts (not attractively, but I wear pumps at the funeral and quickly change into the snow boots before getting into the hearse for the ride to the cemetery).

Wardrobe stables, darlings!! See to them!

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Minty Fresh: A Get-Up-And-Go On Humid Days

You know those late summer days where you’re up and showered bright and early, but by 11 AM you’re feeling sweaty and sloppy? Your office is air-conditioned, perhaps, but you’ve got two or three visits to make and you just know you’re looking bedraggled by the time you get in your car for the third time?

It can’t be helped, my sweetlings. All you can do is your best: choose simple, classic, clean clothing in light, breathable fabrics, scrub down well in the shower, and keep your hair clean and off your face. You too, fellas. And go light on the hair product, which has a nasty way of melting out of your hair and making its way down your forehead.

PeaceBang has a few little favorite little helpers on the muggiest days and she is happy to share them avec vouz, plural!

1. Keep a spray bottle of distilled water with a few drops of organic rose oil in it in the fridge and spritz your face and hair whenever you get a chance. Ahhh! (If you’ve ever been to a dinner party at PeaceBang’s, you’ve seen her do this in the midst of cooking.)

2. An easy ‘do for long or mid-length haired gals: Part your hair on the side, put it back in a high ponytail, tuck that under into a messy or clean bun and keep everything neat up front with a slim satin or cotton headband.

3. Keep your face absolutely bare of any make-up except for sunscreen, a bright pop of lipgloss, waterproof liquid eyeliner (if you’re the eyeliner type, and God knows I am) and waterproof mascara. This makes your features stand out and helps you to look alert and vibrant even when you feel like a Wilting Wilma.

4. Spritz a very light cologne on a clean, white cotton hankie and use it to dab at your brow and chin when the greasies threaten to get you later in the afternoon. Dab, don’t rub!

5. Splurge on a fantabulous minty body wash by C.O. Bigelow. It’s available at Bath & Body Works and since PeaceBang had to quit even iced DECAF coffee (*sob*), it’s the only thing that gets her going on some humid mornings. This isn’t just minty and refreshing, my friends… it’s MINTY and REFRESHING!!

mentha body

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Shoe Issues: Good For the Sole

Good day, darlings.
Diane weighed in on a long-ago post about seminarians with this goody, and I didn’t want you to miss it because she’s chock full of stern and sage advice:

This seems like a good place to mention a pet peeve of mine. Here at seminary there are a number of women with “shoe issues.” Some are young, some are older. They are talked about behind their backs, especially when they are walking around the chapel. What are their issues? Well, there are three main ones –

1) Trendy shoes from shoehero.com that draw attention away from the service and onto the wearer. In our tradition (Episcopal) one does not walk around in black cassock or white alb with anything other than black or maybe dark brown or dark gray shoes. I know acolytes get away with it all the time, but we are not acolytes. We are preparing to be priests. Even if that means buying one pair of “church shoes” that are conservative black flats, we should do it, and change back into the cute, outfit matching shoes in the sacristy after the service.

2) Loud, clomping shoes. Again, distracting. We have one student who went out to officiate at a service recently and you could hear the clomp, clomp, clomp over the music as she walked. Hello. Again, it’s about the service, not about us. It also makes women seem less professional.

3) Wearing heels you cannot walk well or safely in. Wear heels that work for you, or professional but less high heeled shoes. We all look silly tripping off our heels. Again, it’s distracting and unprofessional. You don’t see the male priests falling off their shoes. Let’s not do it either.

Let me add, Diane, that my only disagreement with your advice is not to talk about our sister seminarians behind their backs. Talk about them TO THEIR FACES. Pull them over, say, “Honey, you sounded like Mr. Ed clomping around out there, you NEED to get a pair of quieter shoes. Let’s go shopping after Homiletics class on Thursday!” Or, “Sister, my sister, I love those heels you’ve got on but I was watching you just now and you’re just destined to break your ankle one of these days. Those aren’t suitable for this work, girl, and someone needed to tell you. I love you enough to be the one.”

If you say it with love and care, she might still get mad but at least you’ve made the transition from petty gossip to supportive future colleague. And that’s good for the soul.

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Helping A Friend & Transitions Out of Seminary To Ministry

Mon petite daffodils,

Transitions are hard. It is hard to transition from being a stay-at-home mama to being, for instance, a working woman in the corporate world. It is hard to transition from being a working person to a retired person. It is challenging to transition from being a movie star to being a rehab resident. It is hard to transition from being a seminarian to an ordained clergyperson.

What happens when one of your friends doesn’t seem to be making the transition well? You must pull him or her aside and say this:

“Honey Lamb, I love ya like a house afire, but your look is still too Hanes-oriented to make the professional scene. You’re undermining your own authority by wearing shapless sweatclothes, and it still doesn’t work if they’re skirts or pants or shirts with buttons; they’re not appropriate. Please let me go shopping with you and we’ll make a super fun day of it and try on tons of stuff — even stuff you don’t think will look good on you — we’re going to explore, not necessarily to purchase — and we’re going to find the more beautiful, polished YOU I know is in there. And you’re going to agree to this or I am going to send Marvin the Torch to your closet and there will be a Very Tragic Accident there.”

The point is, you must be blunt. You gotta be brave, ya gotta be bold, ya gotta be stronger. That’s not just a great karaoke song by Des’ree, it’s also a truth about friendship relationships. Friends do not let friends leave the house with muffin tops and rear-end cleavage. They call their sisters on dresses that have become a Festival of Inappropriate Sharing and offer to loan a camisole if necessary. Dudes pull their dude pals aside and say, “Let me loan you my electric razor, pal. Better yet, I’ll come over ten minutes earlier tonight and shave those gorilla hairs off the back of your neck for you, which, by the way, wouldn’t hurt to scrub now and then.” This is a given. But God also helps those who help themselves, and those of us who know that we’re going to be making an important life transition will do ourselves a world of good if we prepare earlier, rather than later, for that transition. For ministers-to-be, this means:

1. Get out of your sweats and jeans once in awhile. Own at least a couple pairs of pants that could serve in a professional setting, and know what size and cuts flatter you and FIT. Why wait until pre-candidating week, when you’ll already have enough on your mind? What’s your dress size? Hate dresses? What’s your skirt size? Fellas, do you own at least once decent tie? Get on it. Sports coat, a few decent shirts? Borrow if you have to. Develop a spectrum of looks and make some conscious choices about where and when they work for you. When in doubt, overdress a bit.

2. Assemble your grooming and/or cosmetics products as soon as you can, and start a routine of using them. Sure, you can go to class with witchy dry hair or scraggly facial hair, crust in your eyes and pallid, puffy skin that identifies you as someone who hasn’t seen the light of day since you started Intermediate Greek, but don’t get used to yourself that way. Step it up when you can. Don’t start bad grooming habits in seminary and expect it to be easy to break them once you’re a working pastor. This leads to the type of whining that causes PeaceBang to want to spank you: “I don’t have tiiiiiime to style my hair! I don’t have tiiiiiime to wear blush or lipstick!” Well then, poochikins, you don’t have tiiime to project an image of leadership, pride in your calling and dignity of the pastoral office, either, and PeaceBang doesn’t have tiiiime for that attitude!

3. As early as possible, start an organizational system for your liturgical and programmatic work. The first time someone asks you to preach, start a file for that service under theme or date or however you choose to do it. File away prayers, file chalice lightings, invocations, funeral/memorial readings, baby blessings, orders of service …. develop a system and start using it devotedly at the earliest possible moment. This isn’t about your external beauty but your interior calm when you start leading and crafting worship yourself, and (pssst), if you have an organized study (PeaceBang’s books are arranged, for instance, by subject all over her parsonage), you’ll have the tiiiiime you need before a wedding or Sunday morning service to iron your shirt and shine your shoes, fill in your eyebrows and apply some lip gloss, do ten minutes of deep belly breathing, and show up poised, peaceful and prepared.

As the world gets more chaotic and uncertain, my doves, we must be ever-more-conscious, centered and grounded representatives of HaShem, the divine Presence. If we come shooting through the door in drab jeans, hair sprouting from our ears, white gym socks where there should be black dress socks, faces and bodies that tell a tale of self-neglect, we contribute to the sense that God is not in His/Her heaven and all is not right with the world.

Tell a different tale. Tell it with your very being. Start today. Go be beautiful.