Anthony's post regarding John Wesley spurred me to share this: Earlier this week, I attended the G20 Interfaith Summit here on the Gold Coast - no connection to the G20 Economic Summit held last weekend in nearby Brisbane, just named similarly to attract attention. It was sponsored by Griffith University, a uni with a number of campuses here in Southeastern Queensland.
Anyhow, whilst I was sitting in one of the sessions I realised that not only was I the only long-haired man present, there were hardly any long-haired women even! It was generally an older crowd, so what Ken wrote in response to my last post regardingf social pressures on older women to cut their hair, was ringing in my ears.
I was sitting at lunch at the conference with some lovely LDS (Mormon) people and one of them asked about Nazirite Vows in Judaism and suggested that Jesus of Nazareth was a Nazirite like that famous Nazirite, Samson. (No linguistic link between the famous Jew's town in the Galilee and the word 'Nazirite,' BTW...in Hebrew they are from different roots.) Martin Scorcese may have enjoyed putting in a few words, but luckily he wasn't there. We talked about the idea a bit, and then I caught sight of my bushy pony tail which was hanging over one shoulder. "That's it!" I said. "If anybody gives me a hard time over my hair, I'll tell them I've taken a Nazirite Vow!" We all had a laugh.
Then this morning, I was driving back from Miami (not the one in Florida) through Surfers Paradise and realised that there were wall-to-wall long-haired men! Everywhere I looked! So I'll have to re-think the assertion i once made here that religious men are particularly open-minded about long hair...
Nu, a pleasant and peaceful Sabbath to all! (getting to be late Friday afternoon here...)
Don
I've noticed this too at our national civil war encampments.
While there are about ten long haired men in the group, all of the women in the Auxiliaries have short hair. None of them have hair below the shoulders. So my hair was the longest in the place.
My own hair is longer than my wife's. That amuses people when they notice or dare say anything.
Anthony
My blog
My wife has long hair which is a couple inches longer than mine - She remarked recently that she feels pressure to cut her hair as well. She had very long hair back in her high school youth, and has had various lengths and styles over the years - these last few years she has grown hers out long - We are in our late 50s now and she is feeling outnumbered in most social settings. Women say they "enjoy" going to the salon for a new style - and feel there is nothing better than doing that - my wife resists going to the hair salon and so do I... I have not ever really enjoyed going for a hair cut - I am at 23 months since my last hair cut now!
I don't enjoy getting a haircut, never have, never will.
I'm 60, have had long hair since 1964.
For many years I had pressure to cut my hair, i've resisted all these years, will continue to resist.