fundamentally strange

When a finger points at the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger.
-Chinese Proverb

I was thinking while I was out to lunch today about Jesus' hair. I am not sure just what train of thought derailed far enough to get to that subject, but it did and so I thought some more about it.

I grew up going to a very strict fundamentalist Baptist church (automatic 5 year therapy term). I mean this church thought that the Southern Baptist Convention was a bunch of leftists. Boys' hair had to be cut above the ears and girls couldn't wear sundresses or shorts (even for the softball team-needless to say I didn't play). Now, this was the 1970's mind you, the decade of hip-huggers and shorts that barely qualified to have a crotch in them. I mean, you always saw girls' and guy's underwear hanging out in gym class. No one even gave it second thought unless one of the guys' nuts made its way to fresh air. So what?

But every Sunday, my family conveniently drove me back into the dark ages, which happened to be in the next county. Even as a clueless kid, I knew something was weird about all this. We had record burnings, which was freaky to me. I watched Barbara Streisand burn. Huh? What did she do, I wondered? Could I have it before it melts? I look back and guess that some husband was using it as an excuse to burn his wife's vinyl Babs collection.

I digress.

Anyway, I was thinking about all those things and how there used to be such a big deal about the length of men's hair (damn hippies!) and then I remembered one, if not one hundred, paintings of Jesus. The dude had long hair and a big fuzzy beard. How can you enforce style as part of a religion I wonder? He was trying to tell me something way back then.