CHRIST IN WINTER:
Reflections on Faith and Life from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter…
After a certain age, a
woman should not be allowed to change her hairstyle. Like high school
graduation. Yes, I’m all for women being in charge of their own bodies, but
hair is different, because it’s not exactly part of the body, and because
that’s the way we identify a woman, the way we can tell one of them from the
others.
The same should be true
with men changing, also, but with height instead of hair. I remember the first
class reunion Jack Drury attended. Who was this tall guy? When we graduated,
Jack was about five-six. This man was 6 feet tall. He had grown over half a
foot after high school! How are people to deal with something like that? Yes,
he was wearing a name tag, but we were all looking for that name tag six inches
too low.
If a man grows more than
one inch taller after high school, he should be required to change his name and
move to a foreign country, like Texas. At class reunions, we’d say: “What ever
happened to Jack?” “I don’t know, but I remember him well… five-six.”
Now at class reunions we
say: “Who are all these old ladies?” It’s not because their backs are bent and
they’re wearing sensible shoes. We liked their straight backs and their high
heels fine, but we didn’t identify them by those. Our confusion is because they
all have the same white-bonnet hair-do, even the ones who are supposed to have
the kinky brown curls, or the flowing red tresses, or the black flip-dos over
their ears.
Yes, sometimes women lose
hair because of cancer, but wigs can be made to replicate the lost hair. What’s
more important, a fancy wig or being recognized at the reunion for who you
really are?
The rules for old age are
few, but important: Stay in the moment. Do the right thing. Start at the end.
Don’t mess with your hair style. There is a reason why the hairs of your head
are numbered. [Mt 10:30, Lk 12:7]
JRMcF
“All we ask [in old age]
is to be allowed to remain the authors of our own story.” Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, p. 140.
I tweet occasionally as
yooper1721.
The “place of winter”
mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
[The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is
explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] Having met and married while at IU
in Bloomington, IN, we became Bloomarangs in May of 2015, moving back to where
we started, closing the circle. We no longer live in the land of winter, but I
am in the winter of my years, and so I am still trying to understand Christ in
winter.
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