A Hairy Problem

‘Tis the season for ads that tell us all the ways we don’t measure up and promise to fix it for us. Among all the “keep up with the Joneses” commercials are a good number of “you don’t look good enough for holiday gatherings” offerings. You must whiten your teeth! You must get rid of your wrinkles! You simply must do something about your hair!

I’ve been thinking about hair in particular ever since I watched the CMA awards this year and saw Mickey Guyton’s show-stopping performance of “Love my Hair.” Guyton, who’s black, wrote the song in response to an incident in which a young black girl was sent home from school because her hair didn’t meet the school’s dress code requirements.

Most of us haven’t faced anything quite that in-your-face when it comes to not meeting appearance standards, but it doesn’t mean we don’t get the message. Every culture has a standard of beauty, and the farther we think we are from it, the more time, energy, and money we’re likely to spend on trying to hit the mark. Unfortunately, that’s not all it can cost us. Beauty products are mostly unregulated and untested and can also cost us our health.

Sickening Beauty

We don’t know all we need to know about the health effects of commonly used products. We don’t even know everything that’s in them. As a Guardian article notes, the single word “fragrance” can mean a combination of 50 to 300 different chemicals. The same article also quotes an expert who says, “No state, federal or global authority is regulating the safety of fragrance chemicals. No state, federal or global authority even knows which fragrance chemicals appear in which products.”

What we do know about personal care products is alarming. The documentary Toxic Beauty (which is well worth watching) notes that many products we use every day contain chemicals which are endocrine disrupters, meaning they mess with our hormones. We have over 50, including insulin, serotonin, melatonin, cortisol, thyroid, and reproductive hormones, and disrupting them can have wide-ranging effects. The film reports surprising product ingredients, such as coal tar in soaps, creams, and lipstick; arsenic in toothpaste; mercury in skin lighteners; and formaldehyde in deodorant and shampoo. The long list of potential health effects of the nine products they list includes cancer, heart disease, infertility, miscarriage, tremors, cognitive dysfunction, lung disorders, kidney damage, insomnia, and depression.

The Gender and Color Gap

There are products almost all of us use (soap, shampoo, deodorant, and toothpaste), products more women use (makeup and nail products), and products used more by women of color (skin lighteners and hair straighteners). A Popular Science article reports that the average white woman in America is exposed to 168 personal care chemicals every day and that for women of color, the number is even higher. Not surprisingly, women, and black women in particular, have a higher body burden of the chemicals generally found in cosmetics.

Most of us aren’t going to give up soap and shampoo, but we could give up other products if we decided not to try to conform to arbitrary standards. It’s a great goal, but there are reasons we don’t. There’s plenty of research showing that physical appearance affects career success and all sorts of other things. Personally, I wear less makeup and use far fewer products than I once did, but I do still make a bit of an effort to look culturally acceptable. I feel the pressure as an aging white woman. I can only imagine the pressure for women of color.

Actually, I don’t have to just imagine. I certainly have no idea what it’s like to be black or brown in the USA with all the history and cultural baggage that entails, but I did live in Central and South America for a decade, so I know what it’s like to have skin and hair that don’t fit. I know what it’s like to be told by my friends about places I shouldn’t go because the color of my skin made it too dangerous. I know what it’s like to be pulled over while driving because of how I look.

On one hard-to-explain occasion I realized how much I had internalized the message that a normal skin tone was one that was different than mine. I drove past a brown skinned woman holding a white skinned baby and thought “That baby looks odd. He’s so white.”  It took a few beats for me to remember that I was pregnant and that my own baby was going to look like that. It took a few more beats to recall that I myself had that same strange skin.

And then there’s hair. There’s only so much we can do to change the color of our skin, but there’s a lot we can do to our hair. When I was younger and sillier, the combination of not loving my hair and not focusing on chemical dangers prompted me to get a perm. Because I lived in a country where my hair was different from the norm and the hairdresser was unfamiliar with hair like mine, the results were fairly disastrous. It led to the following conversation with my 3-year-old son.

Son: Why did you get your hair big?

Me: I thought it would be pretty. Do you think it’s pretty?

Son: No.

My point is simply this: As much as I believe the goal (for all of us, white, black, and brown) should be to get to a point where we celebrate ourselves and each other for the uniquenesses of our individual bodies, I know there are also valid reasons we try to fit in. I also understand the added pressure of being farther from the norm. So if we aren’t going to give up all the things we think will improve our appearance, we need to make sure that what we’re using isn’t going to make us sick.

Choosing Healthier Products

Fortunately, not all personal care products are created equal. The Skin Deep database is a good place to look for information on healthier options. Unfortunately, there’s disparity in product offerings as well. In 2016 the Environmental Working Group evaluated more than a thousand products marketed to black women and concluded that there were fewer healthier choices in that category.

The good news is that often we can achieve our goals without having to purchase manufactured products at all. Simple, natural ingredients can work surprisingly well in many instances. It does take time and experimentation, though, to find what works best for you. As people around me may have noticed, my experimentation with DIY mascara isn’t going particularly well (but I haven’t given up!) At least I haven’t had the experience one chemically sensitive woman shared. She used something a bit sticky on her eyelashes, then went to church and shut her eyes to pray. When she tried to open them again, she found they were stuck together.

Whatever the current state of your eyelashes, I hope you feel beautiful today (or handsome, for the guys reading this). I hope you never have to choose between trying to meet beauty standards and your health, but if you do, I hope you choose to protect your health. I hope you’ll remember that you’re made in God’s image and are his absolute masterpiece. I also truly hope you love your hair.

Is Your Church Telling the Truth?

Sometimes churches don’t tell the truth. I’m sure it isn’t conscious or done with malicious intent, but sometimes they misrepresent themselves. I tend to have this thought every year at this time, when discipleship groups get started again after the summer break. I’ve listened to churches promote them for years, and often my response to their catchy slogans is “That isn’t true.” 

The slogans that provoke that response are the ones that say there are groups for everyone. That generally means there are selections for different ages, for men and women, and meetings at different times of the week. It doesn’t mean there’s at least one that’s physically accessible for people with illness or disability or that there’s an online connection option. “Everyone” doesn’t tend to mean me, or those like me. These are some of the slogans in that category:

• There’s a place for you

• We’ve saved you a spot

• Our doors are wide open

There’s another category of slogan that doesn’t cause me to think “That isn’t true,” but to respond with “I can’t.” Those are the invitation slogans. Some examples:

• Come as you are

• Come grow in grace

• Be part of our family

• Find a place of connection

• Join the fellowship

There are many of us who would join you if we could. How do we do that? Can you make a way? When we hear those invitations, it feels like we’re standing in a group and someone is inviting everyone else to a party, but leaving us out. It’s awkward. It’s painful.

A final category is the “statement of truth” slogan. I can agree with them, but don’t have any idea how to act on the agreement. For example:

• We’re better together

• We need each other

• Life isn’t meant to be lived alone

My internal response is “I know that, but I can’t address it without your help.”

Is your church telling the truth about being open to all? Are you inviting people in with one hand, but keeping them out with the other? Are you acknowledging needs but not meeting them? Maybe it’s time to make some changes.

Dust, Debris, and Unanswered Questions

Folks who’ve been reading this blog for a while know that I love the Biblical book of Job and I return to it on a regular basis. Here are a couple of new musings. 

I’ve been studying the book with a group, and last week we looked at what’s probably its best known verse, Job 19:25. That’s the spot where Job, in the middle of striving with his friends who just keep insisting he must have brought his sufferings on himself, seems to change the subject and suddenly declares “I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.” (NLT)

I learned a couple of interesting things about this declaration. The first is that the word often translated “earth” can also be translated “dust.”  Other translations of the term include ashes, debris, rubbish, or rubble.

This brings new images to mind, doesn’t it?  Maybe the idea is that when everything that once seemed solid deteriorates, collapses, or crumbles to the ground, what we can count on to still be standing is our loving, rescuing God. Author Terry Betts explains that the verse literally says that our redeemer will “stand against the dust.” He’s the counterpoint. He’s the one who says “The dust is not the end. I can use it to create new life.” The Literal Standard Version says “He raises the dust.” 

The second thing I had never really noticed about this verse is what comes immediately before it. In verses 23 and 24 Job says, “Oh, that my words could be recorded. Oh, that they could be inscribed on a monument, carved with an iron chisel and filled with lead, engraved forever in the rock.” 

What words did he want engraved? The ones he used to maintain his innocence. He was undoubtedly worn out by the unending conversations with his friends and of the constant need to defend himself and his integrity. Betts says “He feared he would die before he was vindicated and cleared of all the false accusations his friends had cast at him. He wanted a permanent statement that would put the record straight.”

It’s in this setting that Job talks about his redeemer, a term which carries the idea of being freed from bondage or oppression by enemies. Job undoubtedly felt oppressed by his enemy-friends. He wanted to be rescued from their false narrative and he believed that God would do it.

Here are a couple of translations of the verse that get at that idea:

“I know that my defender lives.” (GW)  

 “I know there is someone in heaven who will come at last to my defense.” (GNT)

 “I know that my Vindicator is alive.” (ISV)

Yes, our Vindicator is alive and he graciously responded to Job’s desire for a permanent record of his innocence. We have it in the book that bears Job’s name. It’s his vindication, and to a degree it’s vindication for all of us who need it, including those who suffer from poorly understood illnesses that get blamed on sin, lack of faith, negative thinking, hypochondria, selfishness, a desire for attention, or a million other things. I’m so grateful that God recorded Job’s story.

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The second brief musing is simply a parallel I noticed recently between a passage in C. S. Lewis’s brilliant book “A Grief Observed” and what happens at the end of the book of Job.

At the end of Job, there’s restoration, but God doesn’t directly respond to Job’s statements or questions about his suffering. In fact, Job says to God in 42:3 “You asked, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me.”

The restoration came from relationship and not from a totality of answered questions. In 42:5 Job explains, “I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.”

“A Grief Observed” is the journal that Lewis wrote after his wife died. He asks many of the questions Job did. God feels distant to him. Then, at one point, there’s this:

“When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round?  Probably half the questions we ask – half our great theological and metaphysical problems – are like that.”

If you’re struggling today, I know you want answers, and I hope you get them. You may want vindication, and if so, I hope you get that, too. Mostly, though, I hope you can find peace: the peace of knowing that our redeemer lives and can stand against and transform the dust.