Long Hair

 

Note: I did this video on my phone, and I never look at the camera. You're better off just reading this one.

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long face?”

I walk into a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long hair?”

If you look back through my Fred on Faith blog posts and only look at the pictures, you may think you’re witnessing a descent into madness. But my long hair has a long story behind it, and I’ll share that with you now. Every year in June I work at a Conference in Springfield for a few days, and I always get my hair cut right before I go so that I look presentable to the all the people who only see me once year. So when I was given a cancer diagnosis in late May, I was already overdue for a haircut. My doctor told me that the chemotherapy might cause all my hair to fall out, but it would probably take a few weeks. Well, I wasn’t about to waste $10 on a haircut if my hair was going to fall out anyway, so I decided to wait and see.

Those few weeks came and went with no hair loss, at least no more than I’ve been experiencing in the past few years anyway. But my next MRI scan was scheduled for August 7. The results of that scan would determine if I needed more chemotherapy. So I decided to put the haircut off for another month.

My cancer treatment wasn’t just chemo= therapy, I also had a surgery that left me with a large incision in my abdomen, right about the waist line. It looked a little like I had a C-Section. Due to this wound, it was more comfortable for me to not tuck-in my shirt.

I decided to adopt my longer hair and untucked shirt as an intentional look. I thought I’d look like a west coast techie. I probably looked more like a Midwest meth-lab cook, but I could hope for better.

By the time my August 7 scan rolled around, my hair was longer than it has been since I joined the National Guard when I was 17. That scan came back clear. My next scan wouldn’t be until February. I then hatched my plan – I would keep growing my hair, and then donate it to one of those “Locks of Love” types of organizations that make wigs for kids with cancer. It would be my way of being thankful for my own health, helping those who aren’t as fortunate, and feeling self-righteous and extravagantly generous without giving up one thin dime. Plus, unlike the people who only cut the end off of their long pony tails, I am willing to cut my hair down to the scalp, so it shouldn’t take that much longer to meet the required eight-inch length. And  I could finally sing along to Charlie Daniel’s “Long Haired Country Boy” song with a degree of authenticity.

My decision wasn’t a popular one. My wife and my mother, the only two women in the world who have ever really loved me, mocked me and said I looked like a girl. But stating the purpose of helping kids with cancer has a way of silencing critics.

Their accusations didn’t go unheard, though, and I was already concerned about this. So to avoid any change of gender confusion, I have facial hair to accompany my long hair.

It occurred to me that with my long hair and unshaven face, I likely looked very much like Brad Pitt in the summer movie World War Z. But then I checked a mirror and found that rather than Brad Pitt, I simply look like a version of my former self who has been lost at sea for a few months.

All of this talk of hair length brings to mind everyone’s favorite long-haired dude in the Bible, Samson. Samson is another great Bible story that is popular with the kids, because it involves more carnage and killing than a Sylvester Stallone movie marathon. You can find Samson's story in the book of Judges, chapters 13 - 16.

It all started when Samson’s mother, who had been barren, was visited by an angel who told her she would have a baby, and he should be a Nazarite for life. That basically means don’t cut your hair, drink wine or handle dead bodies.  

I’ve found that abstaining from haircuts isn’t that hard. Wine is tougher, but it can be done. And being prohibited from handling dead bodies can only be a plus in my book.

Samson’s story starts out as a typical one. Boy meets girl from wrong side of the tracks. Boy marries girl. Girl talks boy into telling her the answer to his riddle, that she then tells his enemies. Boy gets mad, goes back home to his parent’s house. Girl’s father gives her to Boy’s best man. Boy gets madder, sets 300 foxes on fire an turns them loose to burn down his enemies crop fields and olive orchards. Girl and father get killed by enemy in retribution…

Then the Philistines decide to take out Samson once and for all due to his kills flaming foxes prank, and he kills 1,000 of them with the jawbone of an ass, which has lead many Biblical scholars to speculate, “Just imagine what he could have done if he had used the whole donkey!” You also have to question the logic of the last 800 to take him on after he killed the first 200. And when it was all over, he must have had a real hard time sticking to that “don’t handle dead bodies” rule.

The next notable event in Samson’s life was a one-nighter with a hooker that ended with some vandalism. Sometime after that, Samson then met and fell in love with Delilah.

We all know the Delilah story. She was paid 1,100 pieces of silver to sell him out. Three times she asked him the source of his strength, three times he made something up, and three times when the Philistines came for him, they were in for a surprise. But she kept bugging him. Finally he gave in, and said his strength was due to his long hair. She had his head shaved when he was asleep and collected her cash. The Philistines bound him, and gouged out his eyes. After sometime his hair grew back (I’ve learned it grows about ½ an inch per month), his strength came back, and he was able to use it topple a house where the Philistines were having a huge party, killing himself, but also killing more Philistines than he had ever killed before, which is a lot.

So what’s the point of the whole story of Samson? Maybe the story of Samson is just in there for some light entertainment. In the Red Box of the Bible, Samson is a Will Smith movie… lots of action, a love interest or two, a little crazy at times…

But there’s always a moral to the story, even in Bad Boys or Men in Black. One obvious moral to Samson’s tale is that if you stay faithful to God, he will help you kill a whole bunch of people that you don’t like, especially if you are willing to die in the process. But that’s not been a very popular moral of the story to go with, especially for the last 10 years or so.

Another point that you hear whispered among men whenever Samson comes up: “Never trust a woman!” But when you read the story closely, you’ll see there’s plenty of blame to go around to both genders.

Some say Samson is just another dumb jock story, a gifted athlete that goes pro and can’t keep himself out of trouble despite his super powers.

But let’s not be too hard on Samson. He didn’t choose his lot in life. He had a God-given gift of being the baddest man in the whole bad town. From the Judeo-Christian point of view, he’s a super hero, because all the killing that he did was of the bad guys, the Philistines.

But in the end, he was tired. His second wife betrayed him as quick as the first, and did it three times in a row. And she kept bugging him about it. So when he told her that if his head was shaved, he would just be like everyone else, I think maybe at that point being like everyone else didn’t sound that bad to him.

But he wasn’t everyone else, he was Samson. He didn’t go on to lead a quiet, normal life, he was imprisoned with his eyes gouged out. That put him in the perfection position to do some serious soul searching. And he then he prayed, the only prayer we know of that he ever prayed. He asked God to give him back the strength, one more time, to do what he was born to do… the one thing he was really good at. Then he did it in a big way.

Let’s pray.

Dear lord, we can see a lot in Samson’s story… hubris, obedience, love, rage, commitment, betrayal…. May we use the story to reflect on who we are, what gifts we’ve been given, what gifts we’ve given up because we’re tired, and what we can still do to live out our purpose in life.