I was originally going to do a post about my three-monthly visit a couple of days ago to my barber’s who’s always talking dirty and telling me sick jokes (and who on this occasion nicked me just below the ear!), but then I thought that as Easter had caught up with me, it being Good Friday today, it would be more in keeping with the moment if I said something about the paschal season, though what exactly I’m not sure. Hey, that was an awfully long sentence!
I say it's Good Friday today but in literally a couple of minutes we lurch into Shopping Saturday and it's farewell Good Friday! So I've just made it. But now I've got to get my thoughts together and say something awesomely profound and thought-provoking about this specific moment in the year, second only to Christmas in this part of the world but superior to Christmas in other parts. It's really six of one and half-a-dozen of the other because if Jesus had not been born (Christmas) Christianity might never have come into existence. On the other hand, if Jesus had not become the Christ and then risen after being crucified, it could have had the same result again. So it's hard to decide which of the two is more important and perhaps there's no point in even trying to do so. Both conditions are indispensable for the outcome that we want and for Christianity to exist.
My Barber |
I could say that I went for a haircut so as to smarten up for Easter, and I'm half tempted to say that, but the truth of the matter is that my head of hair, though slightly thinner at the top than it was a few years ago, was taking over my head and face and I was beginning to look a bit like John the Baptist without the beard and moustache. At least I assume he had a beard and tache because we're led to believe they all had that in those distant days, especially the prophets (though not the women, I should add!), as it gave them an air of gravitas and wisdom and was also all the rage at the time. Apart from a few fugitives from the 1960s, who think that a long untidy mop of hair is still in fashion, most blokes nowadays are either purposely bald or have a number one haircut, which is the next best thing to a bald bonce! Of course one day they will all end up bald or as good as and won't have the option they have now, but it seems we never miss it till we've lost it.
But coming back to the Easter theme, Holy Week doesn't seem to deter killers and terrorists from going about their usual business of... well... killing and terrorising! If one watches the news bulletins, it's business as usual all over the world and general all-round beastliness is not suspended even in nominally Christian nations. The business of aggression and assault is too important to break off, even for a day or two. There are too many people to kill and terrorise to let a backlog build up. Besides, it could set a bad precedent for the future and end up interfering with the wicked ways of evil men, a breed that abounds in the world and always has.
Easter Party for Druggies |
As I drove home from the barber's sporting a brand new haircut, I thought long and hard about the Easter story in the context of the state of the world today and it was then that the seeds of a blog post began to germinate in my sick mind. The state of the world was a subject that was bottomless and fathomless, but my visit to the barber was not. Christ's suffering and sacrifice were clear enough and his overriding message was clear too. My silly haircut was not so easy to understand and wasn't even worth contemplating. When I got home and looked in the mirror, it looked even sillier and I had no wig in the house to cover up my embarrassment. If long hair was good enough for Jesus, why was it not for me? Can you imagine the Messiah with short back and sides? Had he worn his hair short, as short as I wore it then, the course of Christianity might have been very different. Indeed, Christianity might never have taken hold! And that is just too awesome to contemplate!!
I look forward to Sunday morning when Christ the Lord is resurrected, though it is painful to think he will be put through all of it again just a week later for the benefit of Orthodox Christians, a sort of ultimate double whammy! If I needed to visit the barber's twice in the space of a week or so I'd be hopping mad - how much more for something a trillion times more serious than a silly haircut! And if you saw the haircut I got, you would think it silly too! In fact, this past twenty years or more, all my haircuts have been silly and embarrassing, no matter what barber I go to. Perhaps that's the difference between a barber and a hairdresser?
No comments:
Post a Comment