August 07, 2013
Flaming Hair
My previous neighbors, a mother and daughter, marched to their own drum
and didn’t care about what others thought. They loved to experiment with hair
color and every week a new color would walk out their back door. Purple, pink,
green - or a combination of all three, were the norm. The day they got into
their car to move to another town the mom’s long locks were a mixture of
flaming red and florescent pink, but surprisingly the teenager was a normal
blond. Scripture tells us, “Gray hair is
a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life.” (Proverbs 16:31
NIV) These ladies will eventually have gray hair and I have to smile when I
think about the color they will use to add accents to the splendor.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----In one way such “absurdity” doesn’t matter. We see folks going further and further out with their styles, for whatever reasons they do it. It is like art. Some appreciate it; some don’t; some like it; some hate it. And regardless, everyone seems to do his own thing. We celebrate that.
-----But maybe we celebrate to our own downfall. Style ties to something inside the soul. There’s partly a message expressed in it. And today much message cast around society is about the “you” you’ve gotta’ be. So then, different is good; they say. And people certainly stumble all over each other to be seen celebrating diversity.
-----The problem is that diversity forms no core. If life was all frolic and fun, a core would not be important. But watch the ant tear apart the miller who lit for a frolic in the evening chill. The frolicking bunny serves dinner to the fox, and the prancing water bug feeds a fish. This isn’t the life for fun and games and “I like this; you like that; so, just whatever.” This is a dangerous world in which wise people will form core interests to share for survival. Or die alone. It’s called culture.
-----But appreciation for the degree of interaction and interdependence necessary to form a sound, well sufficing society has been cast into the dump for the good feelings of doing your own thing, man. Deconstructionism tore the heart out of the productive American culture to formulate in its stead the consumptive American one - the culture of everyone consuming whatever they like with no respect paid to its origin. The coreless culture is similar to the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.
-----The right hand not knowing what the left does serves well the humility of being a truly good person. But avoiding destruction requires more awareness between the body parts. Last night I burned a larger load of wetter trash than usual. The flames died to a smolder in the middle of the process. I knew a cup of gasoline was usually a good solution. So I figured to pour half it around the smoldering mass and up the inner edge of the barrel to the rim, giving me a point to touch up a new flame while standing back. I’ve done this many times before, so I let my body do its habitual thing while my mind enjoyed the scenery. But my right hand with the lighter cared not that my left was just finishing the pour, and my feet had paid no mind whatsoever to achieving an arms length distance. The cup of burning gasoline made a fire puddle to the other side of me from the whooshing barrel while I waved around my flaming left hand and patted out my singeing head with the right. Had I not made similar messes before I wouldn’t have been laughing so hard.
-----Proceeding unaware of the delicacies of critical processes in a dangerous world is not bright. Wild hair dyes and tattoos and nose rings and all the other trinketry by which we distinguish and differentiate ourselves do have an innocuously innocent side. But paradoxically, their other side is shaped from attitudes of disrespect and disregard towards traditions about means of survival and hearts of fellowship discovered and carefully handed down by our ancestors to form one unified culture.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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