When Bloomies Blows Your Serenity
Dear ones,
PeaceBang has been fairly DELUGED with marvelous queries this week, and she promises to get to them when she has just a wee bit more energy.
Do not despair! We will address holy-holey boyfriend shoes, GA wear, candidating togs and all other manner of your fabulousness when the Holy Spirit comes and hits PeaceBang upside the head and says, "Get back to work, girl! Your faithful readers need you!"
But right now, how can PeaceBang give you advice on being your best most radiant self and emitting the thrilling energy of the contemporary church when she has four broken nails, Walter Mondale bags under her eyes, and a desire to wrap herself in this for a few days, or until we're out of this Arctic blast:
?
What a nice pedicure!
I had to walk through Bloomingdale's on my way to Sephora today to return a product (a fragrance by Fresh that I mistook for the delicious V-Tonic they issued last year, but which turned out to smell like Lemon Pledge) and thought, oh my heavens. Oh MY HEAVENS. Look at all the women in this place who are very seriously shopping for $600 shoes as though those shoes were really very seriously important. This is a problem. Not only is it rampant materialism at its saddest ("salvation through Salvatore Ferragamo!"), the shoes this season aren't even that great! Once you've seen the doyennes of Chestnut Hill, MA squeeze their toes into patent leather peep-toe spectator pumps, you just can't muster quite the same sense of fun about them as you did when you saw them featured in Glamour, if you know what I mean.
Those gals were shopping for shoes with the kind of earnestness most people reserve for reciting their wedding vows. You want to know where to evangelize, people? Try the shoe department at Bloomingdales. I remember once seeing an want ad for a MALL CHAPLAIN. To this day I have no idea what the job entails but I always imagined that the Mall Chaplain would be there to help you through buyer's remorse, and lead you to confront which of your soul's deepest desires those Cole-Haan loafers were supposed to fill. Does anyone out there know what a Mall Chaplain really does?
ANYhoo, duckies, the point is that PeaceBang is a bit tired and cranky and if she can't even get a kick out of Spying For the House of the LORD in the Bloomie's shoe department, what GOOD is she?
You be wonderful and vibrant, won't you, while mother has a nice little nap.
PeaceBang has been fairly DELUGED with marvelous queries this week, and she promises to get to them when she has just a wee bit more energy.
Do not despair! We will address holy-holey boyfriend shoes, GA wear, candidating togs and all other manner of your fabulousness when the Holy Spirit comes and hits PeaceBang upside the head and says, "Get back to work, girl! Your faithful readers need you!"
But right now, how can PeaceBang give you advice on being your best most radiant self and emitting the thrilling energy of the contemporary church when she has four broken nails, Walter Mondale bags under her eyes, and a desire to wrap herself in this for a few days, or until we're out of this Arctic blast:
?What a nice pedicure!
I had to walk through Bloomingdale's on my way to Sephora today to return a product (a fragrance by Fresh that I mistook for the delicious V-Tonic they issued last year, but which turned out to smell like Lemon Pledge) and thought, oh my heavens. Oh MY HEAVENS. Look at all the women in this place who are very seriously shopping for $600 shoes as though those shoes were really very seriously important. This is a problem. Not only is it rampant materialism at its saddest ("salvation through Salvatore Ferragamo!"), the shoes this season aren't even that great! Once you've seen the doyennes of Chestnut Hill, MA squeeze their toes into patent leather peep-toe spectator pumps, you just can't muster quite the same sense of fun about them as you did when you saw them featured in Glamour, if you know what I mean.
Those gals were shopping for shoes with the kind of earnestness most people reserve for reciting their wedding vows. You want to know where to evangelize, people? Try the shoe department at Bloomingdales. I remember once seeing an want ad for a MALL CHAPLAIN. To this day I have no idea what the job entails but I always imagined that the Mall Chaplain would be there to help you through buyer's remorse, and lead you to confront which of your soul's deepest desires those Cole-Haan loafers were supposed to fill. Does anyone out there know what a Mall Chaplain really does?
ANYhoo, duckies, the point is that PeaceBang is a bit tired and cranky and if she can't even get a kick out of Spying For the House of the LORD in the Bloomie's shoe department, what GOOD is she?
You be wonderful and vibrant, won't you, while mother has a nice little nap.
Labels: PeaceBang Personal
posted by PeaceBang at 7:10 PM
11 Comments:
I love the person cozy - where on earth did you find that photo? With the exception of the pedicure - which is nice - it looked like some kind of person wrap that might appear on a sci fi show. Or in a snow emergency kit. Then again, I may be watching too much Smallville.
Have you checked out the chapel at the Prudential Center? They might have an answer to the question of mall chaplain. (Oh, no, not another reason to shop downtown.)
Take care
Well, dear PB,
looks like the methodists are on the mall chaplain thing
http://www.mibic.org.uk/StoryTwo.php
sounds like holy fun!
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I think you are experiencing compassion fatigue, Peacebang--brought on by your obvious gifts being highlighted in the media.
Interestingly, I had to run an errand and had a few minutes to kill and decided to walk through a Big Fancy Department Store today and it was just as you described: Grim. Earnest. WAY too serious for people shopping for party dresses and makeup.
I've been at a training on domestic violence this week and I was looking forward to window shopping for FUN, and these dour wealthy people made me mad. Were I shopping at a thrift store because I'd left an abusive relationship--then I'd have a reason to have the looks these folks had on their faces. Not (no joke) shopping for Oscar de la Renta dresses and perfume.
Just remember most of us would be content to go out in something other than a tent, clean and not covered with cat hair, with our hair combed and a smile on our face. Your vocation as expressed in this blog is big, but not as big as all that.
Madge dear, PeaceBang must wave her hand in the air and remind you that she's also the sole pastor of a very active, energetic mid-size congregation, a supervisor to a student minister, a doctoral student, and an adjunct professor. And as is the case with all of us, she has three or four pastoral situations that are very sad just now.
I have to think it was the news that I have a 20-30 page paper due in early May that was the final straw that broke my high spirits, although I did have "Nightline" nightmares all last night, so maybe you're right!
I DO hope you'll give some fashion tips for GA. I need help.
PB, dear colleague, please advise at some point about the sustainability factor and looking good.
I worry about some of the fabrics popular now because they have clearly been processed severely in order to satisfy our need for creases in the right place and blouses that are wrinkle-less for 50 washings. What are those processes doing to the environment?
Sometimes environmental ethics and looking good collide.
Dear PB audience:
Let us give this lovely person, so generous with us in time and energy and caring, a BREAK. Yes, I think your beauty and fashion questions are important, and she most certainly does. But can we ease up on her for a quick sec? Can we say to her, You rest, Darling - we want you to take good care of yourself? And mean it? Or have we picked up our own congregations' TRYING habit of telling us to take care of ourselves, meanwhile dumping us with more?
Harumph,
Rev. Gidget
I'm with Rev. Gidget -- PeaceBang darling, take some time away from us, breathe, have some bubble baths, get the other work done, rest your beautiful brain from all this, and yes, the shopping for $600 shoes and bags is obscene. There is a difference between beauty-and-class on the one hand and conspicuous-consumption-masking-spiritual-hunger on the other.
Solidarity and big hugs to you, sister. XOXO
Caro.
By the way... didn't mean to pressure you. By all means, take a well-deserved break! :-*
Please don't get me wrong, PB-clearly you have profound gifts for ministry. For all those other pastoral, educational, and administrative roles your gifts have been (and continue to be) honed through years of education and supervision and ecclesiastical vetting and mutual support.
In this new thing you're doing here you are a prophet in the wilderness of denim jumpers, berkenstocks, faded dockers and bad tweed, and any mere mortal would be overwelmed with the task.
Even Jesus took a day off occasionally--that's all I'm sayin'
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