Mr. Mike and Saint Deborah

We went out to dinner with Mr. Mike last night. Mr Mike is a tall, slim Texan who travels the world for my husband's company. Though he claims to hate traveling, Mr. Mike seldom spends more than two or three days in the same time zone. He usually arrives in Malaysia just before or after spending the weekend with his younger son who works in Singapore. He's generally on his way to Ningbo, China or Australia. When you ask him where he's headed next he usually gives you his itinerary for the next three months - which is always mind-boggling. Last night he told me he's heading to Ningbo, then (I can't rememember the order) to Australia, Germany, Roanoke, New Hamsphire, home to Texas for "spring break," then Mexico, Brazil, Beijing and one more US city - all between now and the end of May. In June he takes his wife to Paris and Rome, stopping along the way to watch one of the uphill segments of the Tour de France. His wife is, by his account, an avid cylclist, horse breeder, championship rider, middle school teacher and amateur vet.


Our kids love him. He's like a favorite uncle. He quizzes my 17 year old about her political opinions - then chastizes me, her homeschool teacher, because she has none! He talks cars with my son, discusses Border Collies with my 10 year old and clinks banana smoothie glasses with my youngest. He's the only one of my husband's colleagues who greets me with a hug the two or three times a year we meet.


So dinner was fun. But after making the rounds of the table chatting with each child he asked me a question I always hate, no matter who is doing the asking: "So, what have you been doing lately? I mean for yourself, not for the kids." I hate that question because first of all, I can never think of an answer. I mean, unless you regularly appear on talk-show TV, who has an answer ready for that kind of question? And secondly, it invariably leads to a lecture about how you have to take care of yourself to be a good mother or wife or human being. That always leaves me tongue-tied and embarrassed, feeling like I must be the single most uninteresting woman on the planet. I already don't have a real job, for heaven's sake. Now I reveal I don't even have any hobbies or sports that legitimize my continued existence. I also hate that my fumbling answers make me look like some kind of self-sacrificing saint instead of the self-absorbed person I know myself to be. So I mentioned a book I'd recently finished reading (Thank God I remembered the title! I read all the time but can never remember book names), and managed to get Mr. Mike talking about his current reading. The conversation flowed on, away from me and my so-called life.

It's hard to choose the worst of the pop-psychology maxims believed and espoused by the average American, but the belief that we all need to love and cherish ourselves first has got to be the most annoying to me. It's the most insidious as well. Jesus' command to love your neighbor as yourself is often invoked with the implied or stated corollary that we all need to work first on self-love. Once we make ourselves happy, serene, beautiful, fulfilled and comfortable-in-our-own-skins (another troublesome phrase) we can do as much for others, if there's any time or money left over. "If you don't take care of yourself you can't take care of your kids or husband!" we're constantly reminded. Remember the sage advice given on every flight: put on your own oxygen mask first.

Ever since Adam we've been genetically programmed to save our own skins first. Adam and Eve both tried it in the garden - he blaming her and she the snake. When confronted by God they each grabbed the closest oxygen mask. As their true descendants, none of us need to be reminded to love ourselves, though we may need some education about what's good for us. As C.S. Lewis wrote in one of my favorite poems, "All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you: I never had a selfless thought since I was born." If I'm honest I have to confess that my initial motivation toward this "selfless" homeschooling life was a selfish one. I loved having all my little ones at home and was not ready to hand my six year old over to someone else to enjoy all day! I wanted her home with me.

Since then I have, on many occasions, had to count the cost of the choices I have made, and have indeed put my children's best interests before my own, but I have never harbored any illusions about my own self-effacing nature. I have learned that by God's grace we can resist the pull of self-love and serve others, but it is not because we don't love ourselves enough. In His wisdom and grace God has even tied most parents hearts to their children in such a way that making them happy can feel like making ourselves happy - which is what we naturally want to do anyway.

I do appreciate Mr. Mike's interest, and I know the motivation behind his nettlesome question was kind. But what I really need is for someone to ask me on occasion, "Who have you laid your life down for lately? What unnecessary weight have you laid aside so that you can better run the race set before you? When was the last time you esteemed someone better than yourself?" Those are the questions that really get to the heart of the matter - and encourage us all to do the things that will ultimately make us truly happy with our lives.

Ash (Wednesday) Blonde

I am from the old school of haircoloring; I admit it. I grew up in the time when no woman would admit she colored her hair, when "only her hairdresser knew for sure." I have always thought that the determinant of a good coloring job was that it looked natural. Maybe you were not born with little golden highlights peeking out demurely from under your brown tresses, but you could have been. Who knows? The biggest compliment I could pay someone recently emerged from the salon is "It looks so natural."

I realize times have changed. I go to church with a young woman who changes her hair color almost weekly, just for fun. I know a beautiful Iranian woman with 2 inches of nearly black roots that somehow fade into platinum blonde. She looks great, but she certainly does not look "real." She is a hair stylist by profession and obviously enjoys playing with the effects – she frequently has little touches of pink or green around her face. She looks like a cross between a china doll and Marilyn Monroe.

She recently moved to Malaysia and is in the process of getting a business license and setting up a salon here. She misses her work and her culture – a feeling I can relate to. She needs friends to encourage her in her new walk with Jesus. Her English is halting but really amazing for the short time she has been studying. She offered to do my hair and we talked in hesitant words about color, highlights, length, layers. I really thought she understood the word "subtle," I thought the term "highlights" was kind of a universal term in the hair stylist's lexicon, but maybe not.

Yesterday she spent 6 hours at my house, bending earnestly over my dark brown hair with scissors, razor comb, and brushes. She worked in the living room where there is no mirror, which was fine with me. I have always hated those huge mirrors in salons where you are forced to see yourself at your worst before you can enjoy yourself at your best – if all goes well. She mixed several potions, and there were numerous times of checking color, waiting another 20 minutes, then 20 more. She did give me a mirror to see the base color, which was a little lighter than I'd hoped for – but not too bad. There was not too much hair on the floor. I relaxed. Then she covered my head with a huge blue rubber cap through which she pulled dozens of strands of hair. This part was kind of fun. My children kept coming in and laughing and even snapped a picture or two, but it seemed to take a very long time. She kept checking strands and saying, " Longer", and I began to feel uneasy about what was happening up there. When my 10 year old gasped "It looks like spaghetti!" I felt decidedly queasy, but my friend just laughed and agreed, - "Yes, spaghetti!" in her charming Persian accent.

Finally it was done – all the rinsing, blow drying, scrunching with gel and pulling little strands of hair this way and that. She was obviously pleased with her work – kept exclaiming how lovely it was, and led me to the mirror. I had steeled myself – I always hate a new haircut and was ready for the initial shock, but this was unlike anything I've experienced before. The crown of my head was platinum blond – all the way to the roots – a solid block of shimmering yellow, right down to my decidedly brunette complexion. Farther down there was a lot of dark hair left under the spaghetti strands, but the colors made no attempt to blend. This was not the "natural" highlights I had envisioned, this was a look that made no pretense of being homegrown – the kind of look that says. "Look at the cool things you can do with your hair!"

My son grimaced sympathetically , telegraphing in a look that he felt sorry for me but he would not be seen with me in the near future just the same. My little girls just gaped, and my teenaged daughters smiled gamely and said something like, "Wow" before making themselves scarce so they would not have to comment further. My husband, a serious devotee of the natural look, is in the US for another week, so he hasn't said anything yet.

I slept on it, and got up this morning thinking it would not be so shocking, but it was. Neither the cut nor the color look anything like me, or like any look I have ever aspired to. I decided this morning that I could do a pretty good imitation of a perky talk show host- but I can't do me. What to do? I considered adopting the tudung – the Muslim headscarf – for the next few months. Muslim women are not allowed to show any hair at all and have a tight little band that goes across the forehead to catch any stray blond wisps, but somehow that seems a more unnatural look for me than even platinum blond. I could have it colored again, but I would risk hurting my new friend's feelings, and I really don't want to do that this early in our friendship.

This past Wednesday was Ash Wednesday. Raised as a Baptist, I have never observed Lent, though I have always wished I were a Catholic during this season of the year. I have never known how to "do" Lent –all I could think of to give up was the traditional chocolate (which I've pretty much given up for my health anyway!) or what my Catholic friends are giving up this year –which seemed like kind of a copy cat sacrifice. This week I prayed that God would show me something I might give up for the season . I think He has. I think maybe I need to give up my vanity - to go to church this morning and lie to my sweet friend who so recently escaped the tyranny of Iran and found freedom in trusting Jesus. I think for sake of the cross I need to forget about who I want to be and what I want to look like and embrace the gift she gave me in my oddly colored hair. I think when I catch sight of my bright blond crown in a mirror or window I need to remember that my life is not about pleasing myself, any more than my Lord's life was - and also that my hair will grow in time.