Dear Friends:
It is just 6 a.m. ish here. I should be touching up the rough edges of my Communion meditation for this morning's worship service. I should be in prayer for my people as Sunday, the Lord's Day dawns. I should be thinking deep theological thoughts.
Nope, not me. I've been blog browsing and spent time over at Peacebangs http://beautytipsforministers.blogspot.com reading her essays on pastoral dowdiness. As one who prides herself on "fixin up", I stand convicted that I have descended into slumpiness.
Peacebag is correct that wearing only flat-soled birkies (even if the leather is smooth and dyed silver), baggy clothing (even if it is pressed) and caring more about being cool (as in not a sweaty lump) is NOT the way to appear to one's congregants and general public.
I confess that I have run to the grocery store this summer looking like road debris. I wear linen big shirts which could be used as roof shade for a beach cottage. My hands, right this minute, are stained with jeweler's polish from cleaning sterling last night while LD and I watched "Legally Blonde" for the umpteenth time. My nails need a filing. My polish is chipped.
I looked down at my hands and thought, "I'm serving the sacrament in a few hours! These hands look as if they've been out hand-weeding in the front yard, polishing sterling and standing at the kitchen stove over a hot burner blindfolded." Yeech.
So, I will do the following:
1) manicure before worship.
2) return the big linen shirts to the thrift shop from whence they came.
3) search for an outfit which fits and looks like I want to look pretty.
4) continue to laugh at Peacebangs' expressions. See "jungle pouch" for flubby stomach hang.
Really. I am going to do better.
As always,
St. Casserole
13 comments:
Relax. Do you think Jesus looked like a million dang dollars?
And besides, I've seen you plenty. You are as cute as a bug...one of the really cute ones, not the ugly kind.
Cheese, coming from you, this is quite a compliment. And, you saw me wear the same durn thing overtime at the G.A.
I know Jesus didn't look like a million dang dollars. Sorry to remind you, I'm not J., just a hot-flashing friend of His.
Hope today is a good one for you.
Te absolvo. It's really hard to stay chic in the midst of 95% humidity and 99 degrees, isn't it!
I confess to wearing dowdy long skirts with sandals and sleeveless tanks to the church office. I confess to wearing capri pants and a skimpy tank to the grocery store. I confess to appearing at a sandwich shop near the presbytery office on Friday clad in paint-flecked knit pants, Astros t-shirt and paint covered rubber thong sandals.(I was helping Portia paint her new townhouse nearby) I prayed that I wouldn't see anyone I knew and the Lord heard my prayer!
The spirit is willing but the flesh is HOT!
First, you always look great. And if you don't want to believe my humble and less beautifully-dressed self, you may certainly believe the impeccably turned out Cheesehead.
Second, I find Peacebang entertaining and informative and intriguing, but she doesn't seem to like me, for reasons I can't discern, so I am miffed and therefore biased. I agree that women clergy ought not go around looking like moo-moos in muu-muus, but I'm not going to obsess over what kind of handbag I'm carrying or give in to the notion that high heels confer power other than that of the dominatrix sort.
Third, I suspect the hands of Jesus were working hands, although I do not object to manicures and got a pretty fab one myself yesterday.
Keep cool!
The thing is Peacebang is a northerner.....you, my dear, are the southern peacebelle.....you take directors from no one...
Errrm, manicures? Handbags? High heels? SKIRTS? I'm in trouble, women, big trouble. What I wore to church today, to preach and preside: my favorite (read: worn) jeans, a striped button-down long-sleeved cotton shirt (the air works TOO well at Holy Comfort) and leather sandals. Over that, a chasuble, dyed using a technique called shibori, by folks from the congregation (including me) who got together to do such a thing because we like to and our associate for music & the arts is gifted that way. That is all. (No albs in the summer.) Am I going to clergywoman hell when I become one? Who IS this Peacebangs?
Sometimes I'm glad I'm a teacher. We just need to be neat and clean. And if you don't live where you work, you can wear whatever you want off-hours.
you are all very kind.
I think being Peacebelle is wonderfully funny!
I did fix myself up but then it's only 88 here instead of 102 so we are having a cold spell...
Songbird, you are very kind of me. I think I've thanked you for this about a zillion times. I mean it. Thank you!
Nightwood, I want to wear bunny slippers to the Harris Teeter but I make myself wear birkies. Besides, you girls look cute all the time.
I dressed myself up. Got my sermon mojo working. Celebrated the eucharist. Ate lunch with church folks then went to a very country Southern Baptist funeral uppada county. I carried my folding pocket fan and used it. My organist sat next to me and when I stopped fanning, she would begin waving her funeral brochure (when did we start having bulletins/brochures/programs for every funeral, wedding and hog killin at church? When?
I can't go shopping tomorrow but I may be able to hit our pitiful selection of stores on Tuesday.
Thanks for your support.
---Peacebelle
Marie? You know how in the summer people get a bit nuts and goofy? Church people insist on youth ministry when there ARE NO KIDS IN THE CHURCH. Men get all worked up about doctrine and begin fights and take Bonhoeffer's movement as their own name? People get bored or too tired or hot or something and before you know it, you are worrying about if your clothing is dowdy and your sermon mojo vaporized.
I'm telling you, it's a weird time and getting weirder.
Eat some chocolate for me, will ya?
Songbird, I've commented a coupla times at Peacebang's place but she has never acknowledged me--so apparently I don't register enough for her to even dislike me. She probably can tell from my posting style that I'm a bare-faced minister who has two handbags, the summer one and the winter one. And I sometimes forget to change them out until midway through the season.
And my heels? Fuhgeddaboutit.
But I'm not feeling too down, 'cause St. Cass likes me.
I keep telling myself that I will start getting manis and pedis and doing weekly Aveda facial masques when the divine miss m is out of diapers.
St. Casserole,
You are a beauty queen, maybe even a sweet potato queen, without the "jungle pouch" for flubby stomach hang. No, I suspect peacebangs could learn a few things from you as well.
I read her with a grain of salt, and am entertained as well. I was thinking as I read that last post, that she was not leaving in the south. She didn't know how people around here dress. I had been there, done that professional woman thing once, and once is enough.
There are days that just call for dressing down, especially in the south with our wonderful heat and humidity. So go gentle on yourself. Don't be fire breathing as much on yourself. Besides from your other post it doesn't sound like you all have very many stories to go clothes shopping at and any of the other niceties. I bet the others at your church took one look at your hands and said, Oh she is just like us, working with her hands, thank you God.
And for the others, peacebang doesn't remark on my comments either or answer some of the questions I ask.
And reverend mother the manis and pedis may even be longer after divine me gets out of diapers than you want it to be. At least from my experience it was.
Love you and think a lot of you St. Casserole.
Poor dears! I think Peacebang's standards are awfully "north" of Southern living, myself (I'm in Texas). She cain't he'p it, tha's jus' th' way she IS. :D
I enjoy dressing up some, so I generally wear skirts or dresses to work because I *like* to. I confess to finally joining the rest of the fashion world--despite my flounder-belly-pale legs--in finally dispensing with hose for all but the most formal of services this summer. Sad to say, my legs felt better, though somewhat hotter, when I was wearing my light-support pantyhose! I guess I'm just too old fogey-ish for color TV. And I still refuse to show my toes. Mules, slides, and slings are my footwear of choice. My concession now that my feet are bare inside them is to do the heel scraping thing each week.
But I look at it this way: if I wouldn't be too embarrassed to go to heaven if Jesus came back and caught me wearing whatever I'm wearing, then I'm probably OK. And seeing how he walked this lonesome valley in something resembling a bedsheet, I think he'll understand if I'm cutting myself a little slack when it's a hellish 104 degrees freaking fahrenheit outside! You too, St. C.! And finally, I doubt the Lord ever sat still for a manicure or pedicure, though I suppose the anointing at Bethany cam close to the latter. Nobody's going to ask you at the heavenly gates, "Let me see your nails and toes." (At least, this hyper-cuticled soul HOPES not!) Hugs to all my gorgeous sisters of the cloth!
My confession: it's been 2 years since my last pedicure and manicure! Forgive me.
Just had my 2nd pedicure on vacation and ohhhhhhhhh...it was wonderful. When I got back home and realized that Aug. 6th was communion Sunday, I decided my hands should match my toes. So, I was somewhat pulled together on a hot Sunday with air conditioning.
I wear what fits, often relaxed, sometimes more polished (like for Presbytery meetings). I wear sandals in the summer with no hose. (the bliss of a country church) Sometimes, I am the best dressed at Session meetings!!
Eventually, the 70's fads things will be over ( I didn't like the stuff then, mostly polyester, and don't like it now - do tops have to look like lingerie? and some of us, won't ever be seen sleeveless in public.)and normal clothes will come back!! I remain hopeful. I am thankful for spandex though, especially in trousers.
Ack! I've babbled. Be comfortable, be pulled together, but in the end, just be yourself. We don't have to impress God, however, fellow Presbyterians are another matter!
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