My Hairdresser

    My hairdresser needed to talk.

    I go to Supercuts, and this time the young woman who usually cuts my hair was not immediately available.  So, instead of waiting, I signed up with another hairdresser.

    I don’t remember the sequence, but all at once she was telling me about not having a church, her churchgoing friend driving off a Jewish friend by telling her she was going to go to hell, her mother being a Christian and her father being a Mormon.

    What was more important was the subtext—all the things she did not say--beneath this fountain of information.  There was the guilt over not going to church.  There were the confused, angry feelings over her friend condemning another in the name of religion.  There was a wistfulness of wanting a place to belong to that was not harsh and condemning. There was loneliness and struggle.

    So I listened while she snipped and talked.  She asked where I went to church and I told her.  I probably missed my great evangelical moment by listening rather than talking.  I hope that the non-judgmental listening ear was what she really needed.  I hope she heard the invitation in my voice.