The Last Of The Red Hot Mamas
Now bear with me.
I'm not suggesting that you go around dressed like a vaudeville star of the early 1900's and wear feather boas and things. Although could you DIE for that cloche hat?
I'm just saying that this is the one and only Miss Sophie Tucker, and it couldn't hurt for all of us to take a wee bit of this kind of confidence and sass into our ministerial personas. If it fits you, I mean. You Red Hot Mamas know who you are, boys and girls.
As some of you may recall, I played Miss Hannigan in a production of "Annie" a couple of winters ago, and I had a bunch of beautiful stockings with seams up the back left over from the show. I wore them to church one Sunday with a very sedate skirt and a pair of black ankle-strap pumps. Also a very tailored blazer.
I wasn't sure anyone even noticed when one of our very eldest ladies pulled me over at coffee hour. She almost had tears in her eyes. "Bless your heart, I haven't seen those since the war. Aren't they the most marvelously feminine things?"
And then we got to talk about the challenge of keeping the seams straight, and it was a grand old time. I learned about the WWII years, when silk stockings were an absolute luxury, and I got to hear a great story about someone's Aunt Helen's red underwear.
Be fabulous. Fabulous can be a bonding experience. But you've got to preach a hell of a sermon or else you'll just upstage yourself, and you can't have that.
I'm not suggesting that you go around dressed like a vaudeville star of the early 1900's and wear feather boas and things. Although could you DIE for that cloche hat?
I'm just saying that this is the one and only Miss Sophie Tucker, and it couldn't hurt for all of us to take a wee bit of this kind of confidence and sass into our ministerial personas. If it fits you, I mean. You Red Hot Mamas know who you are, boys and girls.
As some of you may recall, I played Miss Hannigan in a production of "Annie" a couple of winters ago, and I had a bunch of beautiful stockings with seams up the back left over from the show. I wore them to church one Sunday with a very sedate skirt and a pair of black ankle-strap pumps. Also a very tailored blazer.
I wasn't sure anyone even noticed when one of our very eldest ladies pulled me over at coffee hour. She almost had tears in her eyes. "Bless your heart, I haven't seen those since the war. Aren't they the most marvelously feminine things?"
And then we got to talk about the challenge of keeping the seams straight, and it was a grand old time. I learned about the WWII years, when silk stockings were an absolute luxury, and I got to hear a great story about someone's Aunt Helen's red underwear.
Be fabulous. Fabulous can be a bonding experience. But you've got to preach a hell of a sermon or else you'll just upstage yourself, and you can't have that.
posted by PeaceBang at 11:32 PM
1 Comments:
PeaceBang, thanks for the reminder to Sophie Tucker-ize our dress sense. Add a bit of moxie, if tasteful.
The ankle strap shoes sounded lovely, and the stockings well... I've long been an advocate. I guess the blazer is supposed to counterbalance the "I'm a swingin' sistah" look...
One wants to be careful. I sat in on a case once at a psych hospital where some majorly talented women work. One had tons of hair, the other a penchant for unbuttoned things and very revealing things. But she was a good doctor. I did wonder, however, how many outpatients she might have reached better through communicating less about her bod, and more about her understanding of the situation.
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