On headcovering....again!

An old friend wrote to me today asking me to pull up some past blogs on headcovering and I realized quickly what a task that was going to be. First, because of the great Boon Dock Saint Banning Fiasco of 2000ish, I have lost many, many years of blogs. But also because , let’s face it, I babble about lots of things in here and headcovering is just one of my many trains of thought that get lost in that railroad track in the fog of my brain. Soooo, I thought I’d do her a favor and combine some thoughts and notes and throw them out there in one whole, big, new blog.

First, let me say that the exercise of writing this has had quite an effect on me. You see, I find myself in the awkward situation, yet again, of being one of the only headcovering members of my church. AND, let me just say, we’re talking about a Catholic Church, which, hey, when I first left, we did not ENTER without a covering on. Nowadays I’m usually one of three people with a chapel veil on and I know it makes people uncomfortable. And let’s face it, it makes ME uncomfortable to be the weirdo in church who looks like a muslim. (of course, this is not counting the Latin Mass where people poo poo you if you aren’t covered , so I guess that’s yet another point for the traddies in my book!)
At the same time, though, I can’t bring myself really to NOT cover my head because, quite simply, I believe the scriptures. And let me just say that even now as I write this, I am feeling extremely convicted for not wearing a headcovering when I bring the kids to mass. I haven’t been doing it because my kids pull and tug on my covering, which is so annoying and distracting. I am quite certain that if the norm was for them to see me in public with it on, they wouldn’t do this, but the only way to do that is to continue to wear my headcovering in public and as I’ve discussed in previous blogs, my husband just aint down with that.
Those of you who have known me for a long time know that I used to cover my head all the time. And that was the greatest thing ever!
After all, the scriptures say to veil, and we veil, for prayer. And yet the scriptures also say we are to pray without ceasing. Why in the heck aren’t we veiling without ceasing? Our modern society says no, but if I ran the world, Hijab would be the norm and not the other way around.

Covering makes sense for several other reasons that are not covered in the scriptures.
I will make a few points here and refer to covering from different cultures and religious backgrounds.

First, I will cover muslims, because to most western people,. Headcovering= muslim thing. This is funny because I come from a culture where headcovering is the norm, and was loooooooooooong before the entire population of North Africa moved in. Mediterranean cultures, all Christian, (and pagan before that) have covered their heads from day one.
Anyhoo. Muslim women cover for one reason and one reason only: Modesty. Like Jewish women who observe Tznius, Hijab wearers do so out of a sense of covering themselves, making themselves private, etc.
This means that in public, both Jewish and Muslim women hide themselves from the world’s eyes by covering (both clothing and heads)
Many, many Christian women today will tell you that they cover for reasons of modesty… after all, Christian women are told in scripture to be modest. However I would counter with the idea that Christian women cover for an entirely different reason: we cover because of authority. Our veil says to whom we belong, and acts as a protector and an avenue of grace. It truly IS a sacramental, and one I wish more women were aware of the benefits of.
St Paul says that women should veil as a sign for the angels. This passage always confuses people, but to me it is crystal clear: back in the day, God told the people to paint the blood of the lamb over their doorposts at Passover and that way it was a sign for the Angel of death that was passing by that the family was a family of believers. Likewise, my headcovering says to passing angels that I am under proper authority and thus speeds my prayers towards heaven.
In short, I cover my HEAD not for modesty but for authority.

Elsewhere, women cover just for the sake of covering, and their reasons for doing so are vast and varied. Check out the non-muslim hijabi’s video blogs on YouTube for an idea of what I’m talking about.

That being said, there are as many ways to cover as there are reasons to cover. My personal favorite is and always has been a very “muslim” style: I say that with hesitation because Hijab has been around faaaaaaaaaar longer than Islam, and even Christianity.

I like long rectangular scarves, and so as not to freak out the locals, I wear them casually draped around my face, in a manner that allows me to pull them down around my neck if I’m really making people uncomfortable. Or vice versa, I wear it loosely wrapped around my neck so I can quickly and unnoticeably pull it up when I pray. At home and when I’m feeling particularly “free” (read: when my husband aint around… he hates headcovering—unless it’s during mass) I can wear the tighter, more “serious” face framing wrap.

Women who aren’t really up to explaining a thousand times over why they aren’t muslims can wear large square scarves and even triangular ones over their hair, and wrap them baboushka style or even just like an oversized bandana. And hey, there’s no shame in wearing the bandana… before I got lazy and soon as I get back to being serious about headcovering, I often wore a simple bandana because the kids couldn’t rip it off.

The point is, I guess, that headcovering is both an incredibly awesome avenue of grace for the faithful willing to go the extra mile for God and, as far as I’m concerned, the only interesting thing about clothing. Some women have shoe or purse fetishes. I, on the other hand, have a serious scarf fetish, and it’s only gotten worse with age. Part of that, I know, is my inner French girl and possibly my inner arab jewess coming out, but I have to say…. In my world, there is nothing more satisfying and stylish than a beautifully covered head.

So to my hijab-wearing sistas: rock on.