Choking the Word

Yellow dust is settling over Charlotte, blanketing cars, porch swings, and old dogs if they don't move much. My eyes are beginning to turn red and itchy. It is the onslaught of pollen. Nothing beautiful ever seems to come without a price. The price of this most glorious profusion of redbud, forsythia, dogwood, azalea, cherry trees, and Bradford Pears is pollen - thick mucous producing, eye watering, nose twitching pollen. And with the pollen, summer-like temperatures and humidity have returned. This is the season when I revisit the ageless question that always presents itself after huddling against the winter cold has passed....should I cut my hair short?

I know, I know. Some of you might still have thought that I had depths of soul, perception, insight, character, noble purpose.... at least on occasion. Now, for the sake of full disclosure, I have shattered that image. Yes, I am shallow and vain, and I know the world is full of woe...but still, I cannot help but agonize over whether to get a cute easy care Pixie cut, or stick with my increasingly long, hot, and troublesome thick hair. This decision is imminent because at the very least, I must get a trim. And my niece's wedding is coming soon, and I will be traveling to Vegas to attend that happy event. It would be so much easier to have really short hair on vacation. But should ease be my prime consideration?

For the first time I can remember in my entire life, a woman stopped me yesterday and told me I had "beautiful hair." In fact, she went on to say, "I wish my hair would do that."
I was dumbfounded. I didn't know what to say. My hair is thick, frizzy, waves in strange places, and is currently overdue for a trim by 3 months. it is also grey with the straw like wiriness of grey hair.
I had a flashback to what I recognize now was a pivotal event in my young teens. A gorgeous silken-haired blonde friend of mine and I were walking together, when a woman stopped us. She turned to my friend, Barb, and said, "You have stunningly gorgeous hair." Then she looked at me, must have seen the withdrawing spirit within me wishing I had Barb's hair, and said, "Oh, your hair is very nice too." She was trying to be kind, but even a shallow, shy teenager knows when she is being tossed an insincere bone.

But now back to the present. I now took a good hard look at this person who had the distinction of being the first human being in my lifetime to praise my hair. She looked to be around 65 or so, and had grey hair tightly wound to the top of her head where it sat in a flawless bun, like a trussed dumpling sitting on her head.
"Really?" I finally asked, "What exactly is my hair doing that you wish yours would do?"
"Lie straight like that. Mine is just tight corkscrew curls. I can't do a thing with it."
"Well your hairdo looks very elaborate...you certainly have found something to do with it!" I countered. I could not in all honesty praise it. I have not ever been a big fan of buns. I now understood the dilemma the woman who had praised my friend Barb's hair had faced when she noticed my hair frizzing to the side of all those golden, long, luxurious tresses. She had no choice but to lie.

"Oh I don't do this," said the bun lady,"Ever since I was 14 years old, I have gone every single week of my life to the hairdresser. She does it."
I thought of how the national debt could have been paid off with all the money she had sunk over her life into a tight coiled bun strangled on top of her head.
"Every week?" I asked incredulously, "And then do you just leave it all week?"
(unwashed? slept on? untouched for a week?)
She nodded, "It is all I can do with it."

Many thoughts and questions flashed through my mind. First and foremost, it was not attractive. Why did she do this awful expensive thing and not see that she was a slave to something that really didn't matter? Why didn't she just cut it short and let those curls unfurl strikingly against her scalp like Shirley Temple? How many hours of sleep had she lost trying not to smash that silly bun perched atop her head? How many chances to swim in rivers had she avoided to keep that bun clean and pristine for the week till her next appointment? How much money had she spent for weekly visits to a hairdresser for 50 years or so? But of course, I could not and did not ask her a single one. Mostly because I had now said goodbye and moved on, agonizing over whether I should get my hair cut short or not, particularly now that I knew one person thought it was beautiful. It did occur to me that perhaps the opinion of the woman imprisoned by her bun was not the opinion I should be most honoring.

When Jesus is telling His disciples how to grow a life of faith, He does so with the Parable of the seed. He reminds them that seed will grow depending on where it is planted and how carefully it is nurtured. If it is planted on rocky ground, it cannot take root. If it is not tended, weeds will overtake and choke the life from it. He urges them to understand that the shallow worries of this world are weeds- they choke the life out of faith, stunting its growth, dampening its potential to bear fruit. If it is planted on shallow ground by shallow people with shallow concerns over shallow things....it will be blown away by the first wind of adversity.

but here is the important question...will the wind of adversity be blowing through long flowing silky locks, or short bouncy pixie waves?

Mark 4:19
but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.





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