The Beauty Shop

“There's a reason why forty, fifty, and sixty don't look the way they used to, and it's not because of feminism, or better living through exercise. It's because of hair dye. In the 1950's only 7 percent of American women dyed their hair; today there are parts of Manhattan and Los Angeles where there are no gray-haired women at all.” ― Nora Ephron

Last Friday night, I was five years old again, sitting in my Aunt Bea's beauty shop, trying to entertain myself while my mother and grandmother got their hair done.  That shop was the center of community for the women who gathered there weekly: a place to share joys and concerns about family and friends near and far, to support one another, to learn about adventures (and misadventures) in the world outside the doors.  I remember the smells of the permanent wave lotion and hair dyes.  I can clearly see the carefully set pin curls.  If I'm quiet, I can hear the clicking of the shears.  And I can taste the SunDrop cola straight from the refrigerated case with the bottle cap opener on the front.

Last Friday night, I was in a very similar beauty shop with my Mom.  Getting her hair done in that familiar place was a welcome treat after having just returned to her apartment from her stay in rehab following a fall. More important than the hair style was the community of friends gathered there with her.  Community at its finest -- where she was brought up to date on everything that had happened in the two months she had been gone. Yet things weren't the same.  People had moved.  Tragedies had occurred. The world outside the beauty shop was different.

Isn't church in many ways just the same as the beauty shop?  I can walk into some churches and be five again.  I can smell the old pages of the hymnals, sometimes from those little brown Cokesbury hymnals in the pew racks.  I can see the faded pictures on the walls, many times the same pictures that were there in the 1960s. If I listen carefully, I can hear leadership conversations which haven't really changed...focusing on maintenance rather than dealing honestly with changing realities.  And I can taste the time honored recipes of favorite potluck meals.

I want a church that recognizes the importance of this type of history and values the traditions of the faith, but doesn't live there.  I want a church that authentically addresses the challenges to my faith that come with the realities of September 2013.  I want to be in community with people who love and follow the Jesus that teaches us to meet the needs of the immigrant and the homeless, the searching teenager and the elder adapting to increased dependence on others, the person who prefers pin curls and the one who steps out into the world with bright pink, spiked hair. In order to be that church, we have to change our conversations.  Are you asking the right questions and preparing for things to change as a result of new expectations?  If not, we’re all five years old again and I'm still playing with the beauty shop equipment I got for Christmas.

As you can see from the picture below, I was really into the beauty shop thing....