IN WHICH: Joel talks about his long hair
Over the last few months, I've gotten some feedback from some of the members of my congregation on a strange growth that they've noticed coming out on the back of my head.
Normally, when I hear concerns like that, I might schedule an appointment with a doctor and see whether I should be concerned, as well. Fortunately, the only appointment I'd really need to schedule is with a barber. You see... my hair is starting to get long - it's been almost a year since I've had a haircut.
Let me pause for a second and say this: I understand why people have mentioned this to me. In rural Missouri, it's not exactly the "norm" for a Presbyterian pastor to look like a Nazirite. And I did get my hair cut pretty short before I started interviewing with the churches in the Small Church Residency Program - mainly because I knew it would look better and give a better first impression. To be honest, I've put a lot of thought into getting my hair cut anyway as the summer has gotten hotter and more humid.
But my choice to grow my hair out isn't just one of personal "style" or out of some attempt to be counter-cultural in some way or other. True, I have a touch of that "long-haired hippie" in my personality, and I wear sandals throughout as much of the year as I can... but there's a story behind the ponytail that I wanted to share so that people can know why I have long hair and why I choose to avoid barbershops except when necessity changes my circumstances.
Their names are Beth, Rachel, and Tobiah.
Beth had a rare disorder called alopecia areata - this autoimmune disorder meant that she had absolutely no hair on her head at all. No eyebrows, no eyelashes, no hair. Period. Beth wore a wig - and it was very obviously a wig, even if you didn't know that she lived with alopecia. She didn't hide her disorder - in fact, she was pretty open about it, since she'd pretty much been called everything possible under the sun by the time she was in high school, and so had just decided to own her situation rather than let it own her. But her wig looked less like a natural human hair-do and more like... well, if you'd ever watched the show MAD TV... she looked a bit like the character Miss Swan:
When Beth wore her wig, she looked like she had a mop on her head, or worse. The hairs were all very stiff, very artificial, and generally just not very becoming. But we lived in a small town and there weren't a lot of options out there for families who didn't have a great deal of money or access to the bigger cities where better wigs could be found.
But one year, Beth came in on the first day of school and she looked like she really had hair. Alopecia can sometimes be cured through treatment, or can resolve itself over time... but Beth still didn't have eyebrows or eyelashes. She was still wearing a wig, but she'd finally found one that looked natural. And it made her life so much happier. None of us really asked questions - those of us who had gotten to know her and who didn't make fun of her just accepted her for who she was and didn't ask any more questions. We were happy for her.
A couple years later, as I started into my senior year of high school, a girl in the junior class started to come to the end of her battle with ovarian cancer. Rachel had been involved with us in band and choir for pretty much all of her life. She was very skilled at the oboe and the piano - she was so skilled that she was often an accompanist for the choir. Over the time that she went through her fight with cancer, we watched the treatments taking their toll on her body. We watched her as the dark circles formed under her eyes, as she became pale and sickly, and as she lost her hair from the chemotherapy. But her spirit never really waned in all that time. She still played the oboe, though it wasn't always easy for her. She still accompanied the choir as we sang. And when she started to lose her hair from the chemo, she was given a wig that looked very much like her own natural hair. She also was given the chance to play with the Erie Philharmonic Orchestra through the Make-A-Wish foundation.
When Rachel received a wig through the Locks of Love organization, it was really the first time I'd heard anything about it. I hadn't thought that this was the same group that might have helped Beth. And I still didn't know too much about it - I knew that they helped cancer patients and people with alopecia by making wigs, but that was about the extent of it. We were shocked and went through a lot together when Rachel lost her battle, but it was also the end of our senior year and we were determined to honor her through our music concerts and to remember her as we went on.
So it wasn't really until I met Tobiah that I really learned the most about Locks of Love. Tobiah was a young man who came to camp at Westminster Highlands on the first week of the first summer that I was a camp counselor. My program director had made a deal with the four boys in the program that if they got up at the crack of dawn each morning for Polar Bear Swim, he would shave his head on Friday night before they all got picked up on Saturday morning. Throughout the week, it turned out that Toby had just gotten his own hair cut - he showed us a picture he kept in his Bible of how long his hair had been before he'd gotten it cut, and it looked like he'd grown it basically since he was in Kindergarten - he was in about 4th or 5th grade when he came to camp that summer. We were curious to learn more about why he'd let his hair grow so long and why he'd gotten it cut - and that's when he told us that he grew it out for Locks of Love, and that he'd just donated all of his hair that summer to help the organization make wigs for kids who suffer from cancer and alopecia.
At this point, I was really interested - the guy who was getting his head shaved was fond of doing crazy things with his hair because he knew that baldness ran in his family, so he might as well do something with what hair he had while he still had it. His hair would be a different color every few months or so, or it would be completely shaved, or in whatever style he could get it into... it was his way of being creative and using what God had given him while he still had it. And since I had seen what the scalps of the men on my own side of the family looked like by the time they were in their 50's and higher, I figured... you know what? That's not a bad philosophy.
So by the end of that week, both Randy and I were bald.
So I went into college with very short hair, which was nice over the summer. As I got involved with Theatre Westminster, I started auditioning for shows and being involved with the productions on campus, and just before Christmas, I auditioned for a show called Dancing At Lughnasa. I ended up being cast as a priest (foreshadowing unknown at the time) who had spent the better part of the last decade or so in Africa serving as a missionary. Interestingly enough, Westminster (at the time) wasn't very keen on doing a lot of makeup effects in their productions. If you could go "method" in appearance and grow a beard for a character or get your hair into a particular style, then they didn't have to bother with wigs or appliances. So I was instructed when I got the part just before Christmas break that I was not to let scissors or a razor touch my head for the entire second semester of my freshman year. If I had been in Africa for years, I needed to look like I'd been in the wild for a while.
This was really the start of my journey - and it's what gave me the start I needed. The end of the spring semester came about and we had closed out the show, so I had every freedom to go get my hair cut.
And yet, as I thought about going through the doors of the barbershop back home in my first week of summer vacation, I thought about Beth, Rachel, and Tobiah. I thought about the fact that the service fraternity that I had joined that spring semester (Alpha Phi Omega) usually did a spring hair drive for Locks of Love. And I thought about the fact that, heck, my hair was already getting long... why not see how long I could grow it and then donate it when I was done?
That was the start of it all for me. I stopped getting my hair cut in December of 2004 and went almost two full years before I got it cut again in November, 2006. Funny enough, it was yet another Westminster Theatre production that got me to donate my hair. You see, apparently gangsters in the 1940's didn't have long hair. So when I got cast to play a gangster in Guys and Dolls, I went back and forth with the director about the matter. I told her I was still letting it grow for Locks of Love, and so she was willing to work with me. We tried to use bobby pins to put it up under a hat, to do whatever we could with my now shoulder-length hair. But the dance scenes and everything else were challenging and uncomfortable. It took some courage - I had grown quite attached to my hair the way it was - but since the entire cast had been given a free appointment with the local hair salon to receive 1940's period hairstyles, I called the salon during the week of dress rehearsals just before we opened the show and got my hair cut.
I went from this:
To THIS:
All in a span of just a couple days. And I didn't tell anyone about it. Until I walked into dress rehearsal and heard the audible gasps. That November, I believe about 14 inches of hair went to Locks of Love. And my first few times in the shower, I ended up giving myself whiplash as I tried to flick back non-existent hair.
But after that singular haircut, I decided to go right back into growing my hair out. It had been a good experience. I had liked having my hair long, especially knowing that I was doing it for a good reason, and it was something that I could do to be a good steward of the hair God had given me while I still had it. Rather than dying my hair all kinds of crazy colors, spiking it with Elmer's glue or doing some of the other things my friends around me had done, I just let it grow. And grow.
I let it grow for another four years before I cut it again in 2010 for A Phi O (and because I happened to be getting married):
And then another three years before I started interviewing for churches. I don't seem to have the photo for that particular haircut, unfortunately.
Growing my hair out for people that don't have it has just become a part of my life - of who I am, in some ways. As I counted up the last three times I've donated and this new beginning of another length, I've realized that I've been growing my hair for 10 years now. It's a form of stewardship and mission for me that doesn't come in the shape of dollar bills, but is measured solely in inches, years, and some sweatier summers than usual. I'll probably never know what my hair has gone toward - and in the last year, I've started to hear some concerning things about Locks of Love's business model and just what their donated hair actually goes toward, so I'll be doing some careful research into my next donation.
But that's why my hair is long again, and why it'll be probably another year or two before it gets cut. As they say... hair today, gone tomorrow. But at least it's going to someone who needs it more than I do.
Normally, when I hear concerns like that, I might schedule an appointment with a doctor and see whether I should be concerned, as well. Fortunately, the only appointment I'd really need to schedule is with a barber. You see... my hair is starting to get long - it's been almost a year since I've had a haircut.
Let me pause for a second and say this: I understand why people have mentioned this to me. In rural Missouri, it's not exactly the "norm" for a Presbyterian pastor to look like a Nazirite. And I did get my hair cut pretty short before I started interviewing with the churches in the Small Church Residency Program - mainly because I knew it would look better and give a better first impression. To be honest, I've put a lot of thought into getting my hair cut anyway as the summer has gotten hotter and more humid.
But my choice to grow my hair out isn't just one of personal "style" or out of some attempt to be counter-cultural in some way or other. True, I have a touch of that "long-haired hippie" in my personality, and I wear sandals throughout as much of the year as I can... but there's a story behind the ponytail that I wanted to share so that people can know why I have long hair and why I choose to avoid barbershops except when necessity changes my circumstances.
Their names are Beth, Rachel, and Tobiah.
Beth had a rare disorder called alopecia areata - this autoimmune disorder meant that she had absolutely no hair on her head at all. No eyebrows, no eyelashes, no hair. Period. Beth wore a wig - and it was very obviously a wig, even if you didn't know that she lived with alopecia. She didn't hide her disorder - in fact, she was pretty open about it, since she'd pretty much been called everything possible under the sun by the time she was in high school, and so had just decided to own her situation rather than let it own her. But her wig looked less like a natural human hair-do and more like... well, if you'd ever watched the show MAD TV... she looked a bit like the character Miss Swan:
 |
But one year, Beth came in on the first day of school and she looked like she really had hair. Alopecia can sometimes be cured through treatment, or can resolve itself over time... but Beth still didn't have eyebrows or eyelashes. She was still wearing a wig, but she'd finally found one that looked natural. And it made her life so much happier. None of us really asked questions - those of us who had gotten to know her and who didn't make fun of her just accepted her for who she was and didn't ask any more questions. We were happy for her.
A couple years later, as I started into my senior year of high school, a girl in the junior class started to come to the end of her battle with ovarian cancer. Rachel had been involved with us in band and choir for pretty much all of her life. She was very skilled at the oboe and the piano - she was so skilled that she was often an accompanist for the choir. Over the time that she went through her fight with cancer, we watched the treatments taking their toll on her body. We watched her as the dark circles formed under her eyes, as she became pale and sickly, and as she lost her hair from the chemotherapy. But her spirit never really waned in all that time. She still played the oboe, though it wasn't always easy for her. She still accompanied the choir as we sang. And when she started to lose her hair from the chemo, she was given a wig that looked very much like her own natural hair. She also was given the chance to play with the Erie Philharmonic Orchestra through the Make-A-Wish foundation.
When Rachel received a wig through the Locks of Love organization, it was really the first time I'd heard anything about it. I hadn't thought that this was the same group that might have helped Beth. And I still didn't know too much about it - I knew that they helped cancer patients and people with alopecia by making wigs, but that was about the extent of it. We were shocked and went through a lot together when Rachel lost her battle, but it was also the end of our senior year and we were determined to honor her through our music concerts and to remember her as we went on.
So it wasn't really until I met Tobiah that I really learned the most about Locks of Love. Tobiah was a young man who came to camp at Westminster Highlands on the first week of the first summer that I was a camp counselor. My program director had made a deal with the four boys in the program that if they got up at the crack of dawn each morning for Polar Bear Swim, he would shave his head on Friday night before they all got picked up on Saturday morning. Throughout the week, it turned out that Toby had just gotten his own hair cut - he showed us a picture he kept in his Bible of how long his hair had been before he'd gotten it cut, and it looked like he'd grown it basically since he was in Kindergarten - he was in about 4th or 5th grade when he came to camp that summer. We were curious to learn more about why he'd let his hair grow so long and why he'd gotten it cut - and that's when he told us that he grew it out for Locks of Love, and that he'd just donated all of his hair that summer to help the organization make wigs for kids who suffer from cancer and alopecia.
At this point, I was really interested - the guy who was getting his head shaved was fond of doing crazy things with his hair because he knew that baldness ran in his family, so he might as well do something with what hair he had while he still had it. His hair would be a different color every few months or so, or it would be completely shaved, or in whatever style he could get it into... it was his way of being creative and using what God had given him while he still had it. And since I had seen what the scalps of the men on my own side of the family looked like by the time they were in their 50's and higher, I figured... you know what? That's not a bad philosophy.
So by the end of that week, both Randy and I were bald.
 |
| About two or three days after the "buzz" |
So I went into college with very short hair, which was nice over the summer. As I got involved with Theatre Westminster, I started auditioning for shows and being involved with the productions on campus, and just before Christmas, I auditioned for a show called Dancing At Lughnasa. I ended up being cast as a priest (foreshadowing unknown at the time) who had spent the better part of the last decade or so in Africa serving as a missionary. Interestingly enough, Westminster (at the time) wasn't very keen on doing a lot of makeup effects in their productions. If you could go "method" in appearance and grow a beard for a character or get your hair into a particular style, then they didn't have to bother with wigs or appliances. So I was instructed when I got the part just before Christmas break that I was not to let scissors or a razor touch my head for the entire second semester of my freshman year. If I had been in Africa for years, I needed to look like I'd been in the wild for a while.
This was really the start of my journey - and it's what gave me the start I needed. The end of the spring semester came about and we had closed out the show, so I had every freedom to go get my hair cut.
 |
| African Missionary? Or Amish Marching Band? |
And yet, as I thought about going through the doors of the barbershop back home in my first week of summer vacation, I thought about Beth, Rachel, and Tobiah. I thought about the fact that the service fraternity that I had joined that spring semester (Alpha Phi Omega) usually did a spring hair drive for Locks of Love. And I thought about the fact that, heck, my hair was already getting long... why not see how long I could grow it and then donate it when I was done?
That was the start of it all for me. I stopped getting my hair cut in December of 2004 and went almost two full years before I got it cut again in November, 2006. Funny enough, it was yet another Westminster Theatre production that got me to donate my hair. You see, apparently gangsters in the 1940's didn't have long hair. So when I got cast to play a gangster in Guys and Dolls, I went back and forth with the director about the matter. I told her I was still letting it grow for Locks of Love, and so she was willing to work with me. We tried to use bobby pins to put it up under a hat, to do whatever we could with my now shoulder-length hair. But the dance scenes and everything else were challenging and uncomfortable. It took some courage - I had grown quite attached to my hair the way it was - but since the entire cast had been given a free appointment with the local hair salon to receive 1940's period hairstyles, I called the salon during the week of dress rehearsals just before we opened the show and got my hair cut.
I went from this:
To This:
 | |
| There are FOUR pigtails of that length being cut... |
All in a span of just a couple days. And I didn't tell anyone about it. Until I walked into dress rehearsal and heard the audible gasps. That November, I believe about 14 inches of hair went to Locks of Love. And my first few times in the shower, I ended up giving myself whiplash as I tried to flick back non-existent hair.
But after that singular haircut, I decided to go right back into growing my hair out. It had been a good experience. I had liked having my hair long, especially knowing that I was doing it for a good reason, and it was something that I could do to be a good steward of the hair God had given me while I still had it. Rather than dying my hair all kinds of crazy colors, spiking it with Elmer's glue or doing some of the other things my friends around me had done, I just let it grow. And grow.
I let it grow for another four years before I cut it again in 2010 for A Phi O (and because I happened to be getting married):
And then another three years before I started interviewing for churches. I don't seem to have the photo for that particular haircut, unfortunately.
Growing my hair out for people that don't have it has just become a part of my life - of who I am, in some ways. As I counted up the last three times I've donated and this new beginning of another length, I've realized that I've been growing my hair for 10 years now. It's a form of stewardship and mission for me that doesn't come in the shape of dollar bills, but is measured solely in inches, years, and some sweatier summers than usual. I'll probably never know what my hair has gone toward - and in the last year, I've started to hear some concerning things about Locks of Love's business model and just what their donated hair actually goes toward, so I'll be doing some careful research into my next donation.
But that's why my hair is long again, and why it'll be probably another year or two before it gets cut. As they say... hair today, gone tomorrow. But at least it's going to someone who needs it more than I do.
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