Tribal Markings

I've pondered this week's Comeback Bloggers' prompt to write about tribal markings--how we "all choose to do body decorations (or not) in a way that is like tribal marking. We modify hair, we modify our ears, we modify our bodies. We wear certain clothing because it marks us as belonging to some group."

And I've thought: If I write about this, people are going to think my tribe is nuts.

Okay, so be it. We all live in quirky families, if we'll just admit it.

So, I grew up in a church where we did not wear jewelry of certain types. The idea was that we were following the Bible verse literally, which says,

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. (1 Timothy 2:9-10, KJV)

This was our adornment guide when I was growing up. It is still the guide for my fellow denominational members in most parts of the country and the world. While some might read the guidance from Paul to mean that we should give more emphasis to our inner character than to external decoration because character takes our attention and effort (ahem; that would be my understanding of what he's saying), in my church it got interpreted to mean (ahem; shallowly, in my opinion) no wearing of necklaces, earrings, rings or bracelets.

As is the case in most churches who tend toward the literalist reading of the Word, this resulted in inconsistencies. No one seemed to pay any attention to the issue of braided hair; that one was fine. And no one went around asking whether your church suit was from Nordstrom or JC Penney or a thrift store. The "tribal marking" really was focused on certain types of jewelry that would make another church member's hair stand on end, and would mark you as being outside the boundaries of righteousness.

Ironically and predictably, women who love beautiful things found other ways to adorn themselves acceptably within the confines of the way our church culture interpreted 1 Timothy 2:9. My mom wore beautiful brooches, some with gold and precious stones in them. Another missionary woman doctor who worked near the opal mines in New Guinea gave my mom a massive, breathtakingly beautiful green-blue opal (one I hope to inherit someday) set in a gold brooch. My mom wore that brooch, or a cameo brooch, or a brooch with pearls in it, or a scarf clip that was decorative and lovely. And there were other inconsistencies: someone of means who would not be comfortable with his wife wearing a pearl necklace might wear a Rolex watch. Or a woman could get away with a watch that had jewelry-ish decorations on it because it was functional. I once heard someone say, with significant sass, that if the jewelry touched your skin it was not okay, but if it only touched the fabric of your clothes, you were good to go. And others joked that when we get to heaven everyone else will know us by the watches in our crowns--making the gold circlet okay because it is also functional.

And I shake my head in disbelief.

Since I'm in a denomination that is worldwide, and different regions don't talk to one another enough to get everyone on the same page, and thus there are lifestyle differences. And since I travel quite a lot, I get to see a variety of interpretations of the verses from 1 Timothy. I was surprised when I took a year off college to work at a school in Finland, to find that necklaces and rings were perfectly acceptable, but the school staff had long discussions in faculty meeting about girls who were wearing earrings. I asked, "How is it that other jewelry is okay, but earrings are not?" No teacher had an answer for me, but later in the day when I dropped by the music teacher's apartment for something, she said to me, "I've been thinking about your question. The problem with earrings is that you have to mutilate your body in order to wear them." Oh. I see.

And I walked away from there shaking my head in disbelief.

One outcome of not being able to wear rings was that people in the church of my childhood simply did not wear wedding rings. Pastors would tell new converts that the wedding rings had to come off before they could be baptized. (See? I told you that readers would think my tribe was nuts.) For Marguerite, my parents' neighbor across the street, that was the last straw. She would not take her wedding ring off and just kept coming to church with it on, but didn't become a member.

Frankly, the whole "no-rings" thing really irritated me. I was a single young adult working in an environment where there were quite a few nice men who were part of my church, and I couldn't tell if they were just married men being friendly, or if they were actually single and showing some interest. "If men would just do us the courtesy of wearing wedding rings," I stormed to my single friends, "we wouldn't have to play a guessing game as to their availability."

And then, to add insult to injury, some high-up committee decided that wedding rings were okay. How they decided it, I don't know. Perhaps they were just capitulating to the fact that those liberal California church members were already doing it. But at that point, quite simply, Marguerite said "Okay," and joined the church with no grudges held.

And I shake my head in disbelief.

So now I'm living in that liberal land of California again. It's nice here. No one has a thing against wearing jewelry, even in the church context. I wear my pieces of jewelry when I'm away from work. My work does not have an anti-jewelry policy, but because my church culture at large is still in a state of flux, and because my area of the university serves a large population of denominational teachers--some of whom live and work in conservative areas of the western U.S.--, and because I don't see any point in offending or distracting the more conservative teachers, I don't wear jewelry to work except for my engagement and wedding rings. It takes summoning up all the maturity I might have to do it (you know those verses in the New Testament about doing something for the sake of the weaker brother?). But I think it's probably the better part of wisdom, if I want to be heard and respected by all, and to keep my place at the table of national-level influencers in denominational education.

And at those last two sentences, I shake my head in disbelief.

That big gorgeous green-blue opal brooch, though? I intend to wear that to work or even a national-level denominational committee, someday.