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Its likely that I'll have to answer this question in the near future and I'm looking to articulate my reasons in a meaningful way to my superiors. In the process of mulling this over for myself, it'd be helpful to hear some of your reasons for growing your hair out. If you're willing, would you share how you would explain your decision to be a long-haired man?
(Please be aware that the life I've chosen precludes me refusing my superiors wishes. I know this isn't something (m)any of you would choose, but I have been at peace with this since well before I was ordained. So yes, I would cut my hair if directed to do so.)
For my part, I decided to grow my hair out several years ago. At the time I realized that it meant more than just being a rebel or a political statement - which had always been a deterrent to even considering the idea.
However, I saw several examples both in real life & in stories of long-hair that illustrated how it was necessarily feminine and that it could actually be very masculine. Moreover, I had to admit that I've always liked the look itself and was interested in how I would like actually having long hair. Turns out that I enjoy having long hair quite a bit! Both the look and the feel. A windy day is a heck of a lot more fun and rainy days aren't as bothersome. It looks good and I enjoy it. Hopefully I won't be required to cut it, but if I am, I will have at least tried it out - and I'm glad I have.
- Father M.
That should read "how it was not necessarily feminine".
Proof that I'm not the pope....
Hi Father M,
My reason like yours is pretty simple. I love the look and feel. Not only does it make crappy weather more tolerable but the insulation factor in winter time is terrific. People do ask me about my hair. Most of the time I tell them, you need to grow it and have it to understand it.
My final reasoning, for the love and appreciation of heavy metal and headbanging :D \m/
On one youtube video who is also a member here. At the end of his video he says "Long hair?... It's just the way to go" I couldn't agree more.
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I like the look and feel of it, and I have saved over $2000 by not having it cut in the past 18 years. It is natural, the way God intended.
I see your superiors are not thrilled about you growing your hair out.
My favorite reply is this:
God created both men and women with the ability to grow very long hair. If it was truly God's intent for men to have short hair, God would have exclusively given men the ability to grow it to only 4 to 6" long. Men as well as women, with the right genetics, can grow hair to 3 feet long. (Mine is over 3 feet long.) You can argue that God is not perfect, since God gave men the ability to grow it long, just as women can. For me, that usually ends the argument. This will strike a nerve with the religious right, since they are trapped, with no way to win this argument. Either they are wrong or God is not perfect. As far as I know, there is no rebuttal to this, and those religious right folks will walk away, angry and frustrated.
It boils down to:
They (religious right) are wrong, or
God is not perfect.
Take your pick.
End of rant.
Scott
Great reply to Father M., Scott.You really spelled it out in a way the father could take it to his superiors and basically leave them with no rebuttal for him to cut it short.It's true, if men were created to be short haired, then if left untouched their hair would stop growing at above the ears.Obviously that's not the case.I hope he uses that in his support.
Mark
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I hope he uses it too. The reason the religious right hate my reasoning so much is that either God made a mistake, perish the thought, or the religious right are wrong regarding long hair on males.
I am siding on God being perfect and the religious right being in error on this issue.
Scott
For the most part since i was a little kid it's just somthing i always wanted....guess you could say i always felt like i was supposed to have long hair....or that always how i alway "mentally" pictured myself
My initial reason for growing my hair was my being a metalhead, and all my favorite musicians having long hair. But like a lot of people, I've always wanted long hair ever since I was little. Its just what feels right to me, I don't identify with short hair.
I will admit I hate "going with the flow" and following the current trends and doing what everyone else does. I guess I have long hair because it makes me feel more individual, and I'm not just a mindless zombie who goes around following whatever's "cool" or in style.
So I guess long hair is important to me because its what I've always wanted, and it has helped me in finding my identity and who I am.
Surely it's down to a personal decision and not a divine one!
Cheers,
John.B
I like the look of long hair. I had long hair in my youth, form my mid teens until age 30, then trimmed it back for reasons of fashion and fealing with clients. As i find i still today like long hairm, I have decided to and am in the process of growing it out. Having long hair is a personal decision, afforded by the fact we do have the choice. Heumans, by nature and environament grow hair on their head and it can reach gnetically wired lengths . Whether this be by design or happenstance is of no qquarrel, here. it is just fact. There is no harm in letting your hair growm even as a man of God. Many precedents have been set. I have known priests that have grown their hair to considerable length, kept neat, of course and they have had no problem with their superiors. That you may have such a problem, is a question that should be asked of those who would deem you cut yours. Why, is it a matter to them? It is after all a matter of free will, which, I believe, is something God has given us. It harms no one. It is not a sin. No where does the Bible admonish a man for growing out his hair, as a matter of fact, the oft cited Leviticus expects a man to NOT cut his hair, or beard. I realize the difference twixt the old and new testaments. Christ has no statement to make regarding the length of a man's hair, or a woman's for that matter. Most of history, men's hair has been long. relative to the "accepted' styles of the last century. If hygiene is an issue, keep it clean If safety in the field of battle is a concern,v then the church as wider issues to deal with.
It's not, really. I've worn my hair short and worn it long and just happen to like it long. Since frequent hair cutting in the more labor intensive style, you could easily ask a short haired person why that's so important to them. People wear beards, mustaches, curl their hair, straighten their hair and wear it all lengths and cuts without having to decide why it's "important" to them. That question is simply rhetoric from someone who happens to dislike your appearance and I don't think it deserves and answer at all.
Well, in my case, it started with the fact that I've just always liked the way long hair looked, and thought I'd like to try it, so after I retired from the Navy, I let it start growing. My original intention was for hair a bit past my shoulders, just enough to be able to tie it back if need be. But the longer it got, the more I liked it. By now, it has become a part of who I am.
Frodo
I have always liked long hair, as a teen I had long hair until I went to college and then cut it short, big mistake. Kept it short for a very long time until just this past year when I just decided to let it grow out long. My teenage son has long hair and in a way I wanted to keep up with him, lol. We now look alike and some people cannot tell us apart, except for the age difference.
I like the way long hair feels, when you have short hair it is not free flowing like long hair. Long hair is a statement to me, it is telling people that I am independent and in control of my life.
Long hair is important to me because I want it long.
End if story. If someone else doesn't like it they
can go pound sand.
It's my hair, my life,
No person, no job, is more important than what I want to
do with my hair.
Since you ask due to your religious situation,I'll give you my answer in terms that the people who are in charge of your direction can understand. God designed your body to grow in certain ways that are common to all human males. Your hair was designed to be of various lengths over all of your body. That which God deamed was to have no hair does not grow hair there. Where short hair was designed to exist, short hair grows. Where the almighty creater of the heavens and earth designed your body to grow long hair, that is where it grows to long lengths. When someone tells you to cut off or shave off (to the skin) your hair, they are in fact saying that THEY know better than God how the human body should look. The only time where God was alledged to tell men to modify thier bodies by cutting off parts was in the matter of circumcism. (Which is a very off topic subject which I also hold a VERY strong opinion on that I won't go into here.)God did not screw up in the design of your body and forget to put pubic hair on top of your head or arm/leg/chest hair up there. "He" didn't mess up by growing hair on your face either. If God wanted men's faces to look like a woman's, there wouldn't be any hair growing there either, like a woman's. Assuming you are a Christian, point out that the author of your faith, Jesus, didn't have short hair or shave for this very reason. To insist for you to do other wise is to figuratively spit in his face. If they turn a deaf ear and still force you to cut your hair to demonstrate that they know better than God and Jesus, at least you can be a peace knowing that you will be judged by your spirit, not your outward appearance when the time comes.
Ver simple: I like it, it is part of ME. I don't cut my arms off, I don't cut my hair off.
I have risen to senior position over the years and my hair has never been an issue so there is no reason to contemplate such a disatrous move. To any one that says "cut" then I say "F*** off", who ever you might think you are.
I don't know exactly how you could allow others to tell you what to do. I think of that as a 'sin' in my own way, when a person follows anothers' feelings over their own. You did not come into existence to be someone else. It's like a tree trying to be another plant. You have a built in inner direction, and are meant to follow it, like all the rest of nature does. To me, God became all that is, and therefore, all that is is God. So you are that part of God that decided to be you. Each thing is like no other, and therefore can only follow it's own path. No one can or is at all capable of deciding your path but your own impulss and desires. They are the earthly doors of the souls' energy. When you follow your own feelings, you grow as naturally as a tree does. When you listen to others against your own feelings, you ar a liar.
An so, I must be honest as well.
Peace and Blessings on your Journey, good sir.
Thank you all for sharing your own motivations! It's nice to have the extra ideas and hear your own stories.
- Father M.
Your story is very interesting - and so are many of the replies.
For me, it's really that at 39, when I started my most serious long hair journey, I felt I was too old for short hair.
It represents to me a certain set of values that are closely associated with the hippie movement. A number of these values are probably highly incompatible with the tenets of Roman Catholicism, but, unlike many of my ancestors, I'm not a Catholic, but an atheist.
I have to say that St. Paul was wrong, as it appears quite obvious to me that nature teaches us that it is natural to have long hair as a man. Mind you, I suspect that something may have been lost in the translation, as St. Paul doesn't strike me as an illogical man, and the Bible has him saying the opposite, which to me is altogether illogical.
Remember, the most widely accepted version of the Bible is the "King James' version. Whole passages were changed or outright deleted and meanings scrambled to make his life and beliefs look more godly. Wasn't the only time the Bible was messed with, either.