O Absalom

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It feels like confession every time I go to get my hair cut. I sit in the chair and a girl younger than my daughter looks perplexed when I explain it’s been a few months since my last shearing. “Forgive me, daughter, for I have sinned…” Haircuts take too much time is the truth of it. I’ve never been one to worry overmuch about outward appearances. I’m an internal kind of guy. I’ve never liked shaving and I can’t really see giving up ten more minutes of my busy morning than I have to, only to hover a sharp blade near my already beauty-challenged face. No, the scissors trim takes just a few minutes once a week or so, and everything’s good for a few more days. But the haircut is more on Absalom’s time schedule. Frankly, I just don’t think about it. Suddenly hirsute.

Absalom’s hair was both his pride and his fall. Usurping the kingdom from David, Absalom had a head of hair that left the girls screaming. Then, routed in the forest, his head got caught in a tree. The Bible doesn’t say specifically that it was his hair, but use your imagination. In antiquity, hair meant something. Alexander the Great was known for his luxurious locks. Even the word “Caesar” means “hairy.” Hair was considered a natural head covering, a kind of piety that required little effort. Ironically in evangelical circuits the Roman haircut and clean-shaven look predominated. I had a job after college that required me to shave my beard since “customers don’t trust a man with facial hair.”

But I’m not into hair for the fame. I just don’t have the time. Weekends are scarce and short and I’ve got a lot to do. I’ve got a book that needs publishing and a life that needs living. I can do it with long hair. I can’t do it without time. Absalom spent his free time plotting. His coup was the result of careful planning. I’m sure he didn’t stand there outside the city gates thinking, “people would like me better if I had short hair.” Quite the opposite. In this country of clean, biblical living, however, we’ve opted for the razor and scissors. I’ve had people ask if a beard is hard to keep clean, as if I’m a dirty old man under these silver strands. Hair and beards can be washed and be as hygienic as any person can be in New York City. I just take care to duck when I go under trees.

Hair to the Throne

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Absalom was the first of the big-hair rock stars. According to the book of 2 Samuel, his hair was so luxuriant that he had it cut once a year and it weighed two hundred shekels (about five pounds, not sterling). This little bit of foreshadowing in 2 Samuel 14 will appear again in the story of Absalom’s demise, as he is caught in a great oak tree by his untrimmed hair. I’ve always related to Absalom on the coiffure issue—I don’t like getting my hair cut. In my more self-analytical moods, I relate it to having stepped on a bee’s nest as a child and having received multiple stings on my bare legs. That horrible buzzing of bees in my ears stayed with me, and whenever the girl at SuperCuts grabs the clippers and the bee-like drone nears my ears I flinch in terror. Like Absalom I have rather an abundance of hair, and so when I’m shorn, it is easily noticeable. I don’t like people to comment on it, however. One of the most banal phrases, not to mention an utter tautology, is when someone smartly observes, “you got a haircut.” With what am I to follow this up? “Yes—I was feeling a bit too much like Absalom in the forest of Ephraim where Joab found him dangling in the tree after David followed the advice of Hushai instead of Ahithophel”?

Gustave_dore_bibel_death_of_absalom

While walking through a mall recently, I commented to a friend how all the stores seemed to be clothing and shoe stores. You never find a bookstore any more, or museum shops, or anything approaching profundity. People really mostly care about what they look like on the outside. I’m more of an interior guy. Not among those generally cast among the hunky, good-looking examples of masculinity, I’m small, bookish, and still wear clothes that I’ve owned for two decades. My hair is usually out of control as well, but not in a fashionable Einsteinian way. I am, I fear, the heir of Absalom.

Religion used to be a source of profundity. It was, once upon a time, the queen of sciences, and philosophy was her handmaid. Seeing the way that religion appears in the media today, however, I’d have to guess she’s been shopping at the mall. Those who measure religion by the cut of her hem rather than by how deep her thoughts may be, have brought her into the limelight of popular culture. She used to be all about the meaning of life and offered a reason for many of us to get out of bed in the morning. Absalom’s trouble started out when he fell in lust with his half-sister Tamar. His addiction to appearances led him to bad decisions that ultimately divided David’s kingdom and cost him his very life. And I guess that’s the price you pay for not getting a haircut on a regular basis.