close cut

Who was the first church leader who decided to use the word “holistic” in describing their ministry? It appears that hair workers are now getting into the act. Nice.

So I went to my own barber today. As I’ve shared in the past, I go to a Turkish barber shop. But today was a special day. A new kid was working. I have this problem when I go to the barber. If I’m the next guy up, and I don’t really want my hair cut by the guy who has an open chair, I always feel bad saying, “uh, I’m waiting for that guy over there”. I wish I could. Others do it and they always walk out with a great looking hair cut. But I always feel bad so I rarely say no. So I walk over to the guy’s chair, sit down, and immediately have the sneaking suspicion that this guy may not know what he’s doing. He’s very timid about the whole process and, to top it off, doesn’t speak a single word of English. I mean not a one. Most of the guys in the shop speak very broken English, but it’s usually enough to figure out what you want done (at least in my case where the instructions are something along the lines of “short”.) But this kid didn’t speak any. However, after some brief translation, he got to work.

Again, just by the way he carried himself, held the clippers, and paced around me, I could tell that he had zero confidence in what he was doing. But he clipped, and then he cut, and then he clipped some more, and then he cut. And he kept going over the same areas, over and over again. He had been at it a while when, suddenly, he walked away. I turned my head and realized that, not only did I have an extremely uneven hair cut that was already cut quite a bit shorter than I was used to, but he had shaved the side of my head way, way, up toward the back. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Luckily one of the other guys finally took over. He explained to me that the kid had just arrived in the country last week, and that he had never used clippers before. Thank you very much for making me the Guinn pig. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. I asked and found out that the kid is a relative of the owner. Nooowww it’s all coming together!

Anyway, to even the thing out, the takeover guy had to cut it pretty short. Tonight the guys in my cell group took great pleasure in calling me jar head. This makes up for two years of me calling them terrorists and mini-cab drivers (several of them are from the middle east…don’t worry, it’s a joke).

Today I got a cut and a shave. Would that be considered a holistic haircut? Oh well, all part of the post-modern journey I’m on towards a more holistic community in my context.

Did I leave anything out?