Head Coverings

This morning while brushing my hair, I started thinking about head coverings. Why? I have an unruly mop of hair that can't seem to ever make up it's mind on what to do. I have maybe four general styles that work for me, and only one that I really truly ever use. Most days, I tie my hair up in a bun and slap some gel on to keep it from going all crazy. Sometimes I'll tryto take the time to flat iron my hair, so that it will hang down straight, but to be honest, it's way too much effort in the Florida humidity, so my hair is pretty much always up in a sort of messy bun.

Most of the time, when I look in the mirror, my eyes are drawn not to my face, but rather the mess of hair that won't seem to behave. I have always envied women with hair that they can just wash and go without much need for styling products to make it at least look somewhat decent. I were to just wash myhair and leave it, I end up with a mass of frizz and dried out looking hair, much like the old Dove commercial before they got Lea Michele to sing the song...

Towards the end, when they talk about "when my hair goes mad...." that's how my hair would look if i didn't do ANYTHING to it. All right, maybe not that extreme, but still, my hair is pretty crazy. So, I'm left with only a few options, because well.. if I didn't do anything my hair overpowers everything. It's actually pretty annoying, and honestly takes up quite a bit of my time EVERY day. So I started thinking about how nice it must be to NOT have to do those things everyday. I know it's not the reason why women would wear hair coverings, but I have to say, there is some beauty in it.

First off, these is an element of modesty present in the head coverings. While you may be drawing attention to yourself in today's society, by covering your hair, you are covering up a beautiful part of a woman and reserving it for only your husband to see. My mind jumps to Little Women, and the scene where Jo comes back with money for Marmee and got the money, not by going to Aunt March as everyone thought, but by selling her hair. Instead of her long hair tumbling down, she removes her bonnet to reveal a very short crop of hair. When Amy, the youngest March girl, sees this, she exclaims "Oh Jo! Your one true beauty!" People notice physical beauty. I don't particularly like that they do, but it's a fact of life. Covering up the physical beauties of your body forces people to learn WHO you are, and allows women the freedom to have friendships with both men and women that are not influenced by those external properties.

I have even noticed this change in my male friends. If I am more covered, and dressed more modestly, they tend to make more eye contact and stare less at other parts of my body. When they aren't focused on those external qualities, it allows me freedom to share more of my personality, to share more of the caring side, to share my faith and many other things that are important to me. I find that I'm able to focus more on the type of person I am than on the way I look

So, as I do my hair, my mind travels to all the other things I could be doing in that time. I could be cleaning, and thus serving my family, I could be enjoying myself by reading a good book. I could be going through a devotional! There are so many things I could do with that time that it takes me to do my hair! Yet, I am spending it on something that I don't like doing.

Now, some people enjoy doing their hair. I used to enjoy it. I think that as time has gone on, and I find myself with less time everyday, the notion becomes more interesting to me. I don't think I would ever adopt the habit of a head covering (unless perhaps it was something like a snood), but I find it very appealing at times. Put it on and save myself up to 30 minutes of time everyday? What isn't appealing about that? Instead, I could be reading my Bible and using the time I would have spent doing my hair, in devotion to God.