Primitive Christianity Revived, Again
Karen - I am right there with you being comforted by my plainness. I have been wearing my head covering since January of this year. It has been an emotional roller coaster and very challenging to me! I feel so led to wear it that I don't feel I have any choice about it - in other words I can't stop wearing it now - but occasionally a voice asks me "what do you think you are doing when no one else is doing the same?" It seems to mock me and encourage me to question the leading, especially the fact that "no one else" is doing this! Kind of a "who do you think you are" question. This is on my bad days, obviously. On those days also my snood looks unattractive, and maybe downright offensive to me! But on other days it looks beautiful and makes me feel just right!
I don't know if others have these feelings, but I am trying to see it just as a test of my resolve and my willingness to serve God as he asked me to. I have always been fickle, hereditary I guess, and I think I am being tried so strongly for that reason. But for this very reason I can see why God is requiring this difficult and visible testimony of me and maybe not of others - because if it weren't for that cap I may have let other things, like my daily time with God, slide as well, and pretty soon I would be back into old habits, old ways of thinking and suffering!! It is this cap, no matter how I feel about it, that keeps me on the straight and narrow right now.God knows us so well, eh?
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Just read a post another forum where someone said a kapp pulled their hair out at the hairline.... and thought I'd give two really good tips...I have baby fine hair..it's been this way since i was a baby and i don't expect it to get any thicker as i am middle-aged now. I have sewn a comb just behind the brim of my kapps that is specially made for fine hair. it's from Vermont Country Store.com it's not in the catalog,only on the site and there are two combs for $7.90... they are the only combs that have ever stayed in my hair. Another product which helps secure the kapp is to sprinkle some Schwarzkopf got2b powderful "volumizing styling powder" on my hair right where i'm going to aim the comb. It puts a silica type powder in the hair and it gives it a texture similar to having teased your hair, even when you didn't. When i use these two things the kapp stays on with no pins, no bobby pins, no tugging, no falling, etc. all day, even in a breeze, even untied! The powder I bought at Walgreens drug store and it looks like this. \i paid about $5 for it and i stocked up and bought two....miracle product.....
Lynn,
I use the shorter versions of those combs, they come in two sizes. My hair is fine also and curly on top of that. Its finally growing out after some harsh meds. thinned it out, its coming back quickly now.
Thank you for your tips because they are going to help a lot of ladies. That second product from Walgreens looks interesting. For now I use two white bobby pins and the kapp stays in place just fine. Now, if only our 8 week old newly adopted Jack Russell Terrier would quit playing with the strings while I am handling her! (I have just been letting them hang down my back when cuddling with her.)
Carolyn
I would love to know where you get the patterns for you caps and kerchiefs!
Lynn Stewart-LeMieux said:
i was an exchange student in India in 1988 and wore salwar kameezes for a year, came back to the US and felt strangely underdressed and immodest...have been seeking a traditional american look since then and feel most comfortable when wearing plain modern dresses and a kapp or kerchief. it's like i look different, but not too old-fashioned. i try to buy my dresses commercially made so i don't accidentally make a costume looking dress. But i make my own kapps and kerchiefs....
Lynn, I love genealogy, that must be fascinating to know so much of your family history! I lived in Salem MA for 6 months, I loved all the history there.
Lynn Stewart-LeMieux said:
i was able to read the minutes from the meetings going back through the centuries and it was like my ancestors were speaking to me...then i read Fox's journal, etc and the more i read the more fascinated i became with this religion that had caused my family to be expelled from Salem, MA. They were some of the first Quakers in America....
Here is the story i found back in 1990 at the Mormon genealogical library. The author won an award for it and it started me seeking...I was quite interested in these women who challenged the local church authorities....and finding out about the lives of your own ancestors is very rewarding reading....
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~myfriendsthelambs...
Lynn Stewart-LeMieux said:
i was able to read the minutes from the meetings going back through the centuries and it was like my ancestors were speaking to me...then i read Fox's journal, etc and the more i read the more fascinated i became with this religion that had caused my family to be expelled from Salem, MA. They were some of the first Quakers in America....
i have bought kerchiefs from this company, and then i have used them as template and made more....
I like the current Chanel head coverings ....don't think they're for sale though, just a gimmick for the ad campaign....
oh Chanel, seriously? those get-ups are too funny! I'm sure that you could buy those headcovers for a slight fee, like $1200!!
I dress modestly because anything else would make me uncomfortable, but I do not dress in plain dress and used to find the decision hard to understand.
However, once or twice year I go on a retreat in a Catholic monastery and last time a Sister mentioned how much she loved her habit because it reminded her of her chosen way every day, all the time. Then I realized that plain dress is just like a habit. :-)
I really respect you all for listening so closely to your inner guiding light and for following a calling that sounds very challenging.
Cheers,
Susann
Susann - I agree with what the nun said. It can be all too easy to forget the importance of putting God first in the hustle and bustle of daily life. Every time I touch my cap, or see myself in the mirror it reminds me - though hopefully I remember more times a day than that. Friends have also mentioned to me multiple times the feeling of restraint it gives them - and the sense that they are representing a Christian to the public and are therefore mindful that how their behavior is viewed may affect attitudes toward other Christians. In an old book on Quakerism written in the early 1800s the writer said that when a Quaker is in recognizable plain dress the world becomes their judge. All helpful to me.
Barb
"when a Quaker is in recognizable plain dress the world becomes their judge"
It that won't keep one honest I don't know what would! I think that is one reason I am drawn to plain dress and covering- a visible reminder to one's self of one's committment and values.
Susann, Barb, and Patrice,
All you said is beautifully written, just like you would probably speak it.
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