Hair of all students must be clean and well-groomed. A hair style that is a distraction will not be accepted. Bleached or frosted hair will not be allowed. All boys' hair must be combed neatly, with a "gentleman's haircut", which does not extend below the top of the shirt collar in the back, and not below the bottom of the lobe of the ears on the side. The hair length must not extend over the eyes in the front. Curly hair must be short and neat. All boys must be clean-shaven. There will be no mustaches, beards or sideburns below the earlobe, or tails of any kind.The boys' guidelines are so specific that they must have been "tested" a lot. But the girls'? It doesn't look like it, does it? Therein hangs a tale of hair dye, authority, conflict, family culture and solidarity, friendship, and ... God's much bigger vision.(Bishop Lynch 2005-2006 Handbook)
Homer: Is that Lisa? Oooo, I gotta call heaven. There's an angel missing!My daughter, Rose, got the ends of her hair dyed red before school began. She's a sophomore this year. This was the equivalent of getting a nose ring or a big tattoo ... pretty big stuff on the "self expression" front. I checked the handbook. "Distracting" ... a pretty loose standard but, ok, I'd go with it. As a color was "natural" it was ok (part of those verbal rules that "everyone knows"). When the deed was done, Rose looked pretty darned good.The Simpsons
She ran the gamut of some of the strictest teachers in the school who took no notice at all. When the head of the school was asked by the photographer if her hair was ok, he gave approval without blinking an eye.
Then, Rose went to geometry where a new teacher (to both the school and teaching) called her over and told her to "get her hair fixed" before Monday.
We reread the manual. Nope. Nothing there. Rose went to the Dean of Students the next day for final approval. She was going to have to have this to give to her geometry teacher and avoid a detention.
Francis: We might consider trying to reach a compromise.The Dean of Students (let's just call her DS from now on) is a favorite among all the kids at the school. She's always had good buzz at our house for her fairness and understanding of how things work.
Otto: Do I look French to you?Malcolm in the Middle
"Two different colors of hair are not acceptable." No, it wasn't documented anywhere but that was the rule. (Where does this leave the girls with highlighted hair ... and, believe me, they have plenty.) DS was as kind as possible but intransigent on this point.
Rose was crushed. As any parent knows, that is when the mother tiger emerges ... and my mother tiger is especially ferocious when there is no documentation in the handbook to support said crushing of one's child.
Dewey: Rock ain't about doing things perfect. Who can tell me what it's really about? Frankie?I stick it to The Man with letters, memos, or emails ... and I wrote a doozy to the head of the school. It was perfectly innocuous as Rose hovered nervously behind me, telling me not to make a fuss. (After all, she's gotta live there.)
Frankie: Uh? Scoring chicks?
Dewey: No. See? No. Eleni?
Eleni: Getting wasted.
Dewey: No. Come on. No. Leonard?
Leonard: Sticking it to The Man?
Dewey: Yes!School of Rock
This email simply was about updating the handbook so that otherwise law abiding offenders didn't suffer the same fate of crushed feelings, large expenses, and rearranging schedules to remedy the offense.
Right. And if they read between the lines about Rose ... well, then good. My account exec training hadn't been in vain.
Did I ever remember that prayer (Lord have mercy on me and bless DS)? Did I offer this bad situation up to God to use for anything? Did I ask to see the good come from the bad? Pffft! It should have. Too bad it never entered my mind. I was in jungle mode. I was still infuriated but calming down, calming more, and then ....
Homer: Marge, don't discourage the boy! Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel.The Simpsons
DS responded and made a fatal error ... fatal anyway for responding to anyone as angry as I was.
It is my belief she panicked. At any rate, she started making excuses for the teachers who didn't "catch" Rose's hair at the photo session. I remembered the excuses she made to Rose about the teachers who didn't catch it during class uniform checks.
You know what? Don't.
We're all adults here. We all know that the code isn't defined. We all can see that it clearly is not well communicated to the teachers. I'm pretty sure that this two-toned hair directive is new because the style is fairly new.
A simple, "I am so sorry that you're the victim of our carelessness," goes a long, long way. It's true. They made a mistake and Rose was the victim. They will be specific in the code for next year. No problem. We might not be happy but it's hard to kick about a candid admission of error.
Dewey Finn: Those kids have a rare blood disease: "Stick-it-to-da-man-neosis".By this time I had a practically terminal case of "Stick-it-to-da-man-neosis." Quizzing Rose on what "everyone knows" are the hair policies, I was struck by a thought. "Hey, if the only objection is that your hair is two colors, let's just dye it all!"
Battle of the Bands director: What's that? I've never heard of it.
Dewey Finn: You're lucky. Because it's hell.School of Rock
Poor Rose. She suddenly looked like a deer in the headlights. I told her, "Sorry. I'm just talking because I am dying to stick it to The Man."
She cringed and said, "But I don't want to stick it to The Man."
Oh, right. This is about Rose, not me. Important point to remember.
I made a call to Joanette, our hairstylist, who also is a dear friend. However, she only cuts hair on Saturday and usually is booked solid by the Friday before. I had very low hopes of getting Rose in to see her the next day. After leaving a message I started considering options.
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.Our options were so fuzzy I had no clue what they really were.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad?"
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.Ghostbusters
What if we couldn't get this fixed before Monday? Could hair be worn up with dye as concealed as possible? If Joanette could fit Rose in, we still had no further guidelines about hair and dye. The one thing that could still reduce Rose to tears by that time was talking about cutting her hair shorter (hey, emotions were rather raw right then...normally a hair cut is not that big a deal, but you know how it goes).
Homer [making a wish with the cursed monkey's paw]: I wish for a turkey sandwich on rye bread with lettuce and mustard. And -- and I don't want any zombie turkeys, I don't want to turn into a turkey myself, and I don't want any other weird surprises -- you got it?The last thing we needed was to think we had solved the problem only to take another wrong step and find out she suddenly had turned into a turkey sandwich. Off went more emails asking for further instructions. (By the way, I want to emphasize that DS is a very nice person who was concerned for Rose's feelings over this ... I have nothing bad to say about her ... at least when I'm out of mother tiger mode.)The Simpsons
So, yeah, you can tell our household doesn't have a lot of problems ... big problems anyway. But for Rose, this was huge, and that made it huge for us.
I did like seeing how our family rallied round the person under seige. All the quotes in this post are things that someone was quoting at some time or other to help Rose smile and take it on the chin a little better. Big or small, it's good to see our family closing ranks to protect one of our own.
I also was struck by the fact that no matter what, quoting funny lines is a part of our family culture. Usually we do it just for fun. But now it was happening to give some context, some perspective, show solidarity. Not earthshaking but interesting.
Homer: Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover.Furthermore I realized that our family culture turns to TV instead of ice cream for soothing.The Simpsons
I wasn't sure how DS's ruling was going to go but when I dropped by the video rental place before picking the girls up at school it was all about Rose. Either for a celebration or a consolation we had Ladder 49 which she had been wanting to see since it came out and the first DVD of Angel's second season. Once the emails had been fired off we went and lost ourselves in the world of demons and a vampire with soul until Tom came home and we had our usual Friday movie night.
I got a call from Joanette at 7:30 the next morning as she was driving in to her shop. She was going to fit Rose in if it killed both her and her other clients. No one was going to put her Rose in trouble with the school. (See why I love that gal?)
In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.Before going to Joanette's, I actually did remember that even though I was upset, I was supposed to be thankful. So I said, "Thanks for this," to God. (Sweet, huh?) I remember thinking that whenever I remembered to give thanks for something bad I always learned about something else good coming from it. I figured I had already been reflecting on what was good in our family so I really didn't have anything new to learn this time. (What a know-it-all. Hear that? It's God guffawing.)1 Thessalonians 5:18
Re-dying Rose's hair didn't work so cutting was all that was left to us. Joanette made it look fantastic. By the time we got done plotting silly revenges ("How about a blonde wig? Shoulder length?"), Rose was giggling too.
Faith: Bad day. One of the girls in the yard tried to build a rep by throwing down with me. She had low self-esteem and...a homemade knife, so...Then suddenly Joanette turned to me and said, "Julie, now pay attention. I need to talk to you about something serious."
Angel: Is she, you know, alive?
Faith: She lives to tell the tale. Took the knife away, and I can't say much for the wrist it came in. And then the beating by the guards...
Angel: I had to sing Barry Manilow.
Faith: You're kidding.
Angel: In front of people.
Faith: And here I am talking about my petty little problems.
Angel: Just wanted to give you a little perspective.
Faith: Copacobana?
Angel: Mandy. I don't want to dwell on it.Angel
She said, "I never check my messages on the way into the shop on Saturday. Usually you would have had to wait until next week. It was a strange thing for me to do. But as soon as I heard your voice I knew why I checked them."
Then she told me a story about her dear friend, having her fifth child, who had just had that child diagnosed in utero with a fatal genetic disease. The parents were given the choice of having an abortion or carrying their baby girl to term knowing that she most probably would be stillborn or die within a few hours of being born. This brave couple chose life. They want their four children to have the chance to see their baby sister. They want to do “the right thing.” They are afraid and they are worried. However, they chose life despite all that.
Joanette had found out only a day or two before our "hair crisis."
"As soon as I got off the phone I started thinking that I needed to tell someone; someone who would be sure to pray and pray. But I couldn't think of who," Joanette said. "When I heard your voice I knew that God sent you to me that day. You were the one I needed. I never would have called you. I had to see you in person for this request. And here you are. God sent you to me."
Wow.
And I thought this was all about hair.
Here we were whining about having to sing Mandy and someone was coming at this couple with a homemade knife.
For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope.God always has that bigger picture in mind. I am grateful that he gave Joanette, Rose, and me a glimpse of it on that Saturday. It is that reminder I need to always keep my eyes open, to be thankful in all things. And to pray before Jesus has to tap me on the shoulder, "Lord have mercy on me and bless DS." Because I do not know everything and can surely use His mercy.Jeremiah 29:11
Life is this simple: We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God shows Himself everywhere, in everything -- in people and in things and in nature and in events ... we cannot be without Him. It's impossible. The only thing is, we don't see it.Thomas Merton
Now, let us all remember the big picture ... and go storm heaven.
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