The "Dread"ed Question

I have cooler hair than you. I have cooler hair than most people. My hair gets me noticed by strangers, and is a huge benefit when working with college-age students. I don't know how many students have approached me and talked to me because of my hair only to later "find out" that I am a campus minister. And so I draw them in, in our ministry we refer to these students as the non-usual suspects, and as a freak/geek/weirdo I can easily draw people who are of a similar nature. This is why cutting my hair is such a big freaking deal. It's why I don't really know what to do about cutting my hair. I DON'T WANT TO CUT MY HAIR! Because it's awesome, because it gets me attention, because it allows me to forge relationships faster with weirder people, because occasionally black women come up to me and say, "Baby, I love your hair." And so this is one of my many struggles, and maybe to you it's not a big one. "It's just hair," people say, but it's my hair and I've had dreadlocks for almost 8 years. I wasn't planning on keeping it forever, but to enter the Order, they want me to cut it. The Dominicans want me to cut my hair before I enter the order, and I guess ... I get it. And I am willing. I just think that it's going to be a terrible, awful, no-good experience. And I think that I am going to cry because of it.

The Important Part of the Story of Samson:

"Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.” With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.

So he told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.”

When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, “Come back once more; he has told me everything.” So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands. After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him.

Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!”

He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him." (Judges 16:15-20)

Dear Lord, don't leave me because some crazy people want me to cut my hair. I still want to be a Dominican, I just wish I didn't have to cut my hair. But maybe, just maybe, it will be liberating and wonderful, and a fresh start. MAYBE. It could also be the worst thing ever.

Shalom,

Joe