There are some things in life that are not simple as it seems. One of those is being a barber. Not necessarily the bloke that you see in barber shops or beauty salons, but the art of cutting another person’s hair.
This kind of art form truly amazes me. For my favourite barber, Uncle Bill, in
One fateful Sunday night a week ago, I told my wife, Joy, that I would cut Lorenz hair instead of sending him to a barber. Joy at first was worried that I might not do a good job over the kid. But, my ever cost-conscious wife eventually yielded to my persuasions specially when I mentioned about saving $15 on haircut. Anyway, I could always appease my son with equivalent price of two McDonalds Happy meals in case the outcome on his hair would not be good. Now that I’ve covered all these things including the equipment needed like the electric razor, scissors and barbers comb, I started to act on my dream. I was so sure it’s a piece of cake doing it. I felt and thought that I’m prepared to embark to this new form of skill.
Alas, it took me an hour to make out a decent haircut on my son. It took almost all the virtues listed in Bible such as patience, gentleness, steadiness, perseverance and humility on me during that hour long activity. Not including the needed concentration, carefulness, focus and restraint that I have to endure hoping not to cut any other part of my son’s head aside from his hair. I know that one small mistake or inaccuracy would harm or injure either my son’s ears or the back of his head. With all these on the back of my mind, I knew I had to fortify my emotions and my feelings.
To make matter worse, my wife was teasing me…my other children were goading me…and Lorenz was already impatient and crying. Then suddenly, I started making mistakes and I have to immediately correct the hairlines to compensate for the unevenness in cut style and shape aside from carefully avoiding injury.
My dream pursuit has become a nightmare.
That hour long activity seems eternity to me but at the end, I did able to finish with fairly good results. I was so relieved that I’ve overcome an hour-long of struggle.
Now I know that it is not simple as it seems. Getting a haircut or profoundly doing one affects and builds a character in a person. Bro Ganni, during a conversation with other brothers last Sunday’s birthday bash of Bro Boyet and Sis Malou’s son Francis at Cecil Park, has professed that he has to undergo a series of resentments and humiliation when his father took on his own to be the barber to him and his brothers during his childhood to teen years.
But looking at it, the burden and anxiety is not on person whose hair is being cut but on the person doing the haircut. Imagine after a haircut, the person is not satisfied and would criticize you, how would you react? You have several options since you have the razor and scissors on your hand…anger, impetuousness, hurt, vengeful… If on the other hand, the haircut was fine and the person lavish with you praise, how would you respond…humility, gracefulness, and magnanimity. If you were a first timer barber like me cutting a fidgety and squirmy child’s hair, how would you be able to endure that kind of stress?
It’s really not that simple.
Which comes to my mind the incident that happened that Sunday afternoon in Cecil Park when the party was about to end and everybody started packing home. A drunk Aussie guy barged into our place, swearing and shouting invectives and racist remarks to the ladies and to Bros. Boyet and Abe. He was mad that his kid was “accidentally” brushed-off by some of the kids in our party. The situation was very heated and tense that just one small mistake and carelessness would eventually lead into a something violently worse. As I was trying to help out pacifying the protagonists, I could feel the silent anger Bro Abe and Bro Boyet has to endure seeing themselves and their loved ones being shouted at.
I was silently praying while keeping the gap between that drunk and the men that the Holy Spirit intervene and calm down not the Aussie (for I know, the evil one was on top of him) but for all of us on our side particularly Boyet and Abe for restraint, calmness and humility. Though I know, the guy’s words and actuations was really rude and hurtful to the kids and ladies…(in a different time and a different situation, I really would have loved to thwack that mad racist guts)…But we have to take the moral high ground and keep our peace. By God’s grace, the incident never came to a violent point with both Boyet and Abe opted to cool it off.
Like a first-timer barber like me, handling the pressure from onlookers and the struggle to managing the hair and the head is really not that easy nor simple. Nor it is not easy to be in that similar tense incident where anger and hurt is at froth and striking back is a viable option.
But we have been taught, bred, learned and lived to keep our peace and the virtues of a good Christian. And that what makes us survive those struggling times in our lives when our emotions are being tested with people and circumstances beyond our control. It is on those times that we not only talk about the virtues we learned but act on it. Though how aggrieved we might be, we always think about the consequences of our actions and have the guided foresight to avoid a bitter end.
Next time you go to a barber…think not only about your vanity or how bad your hair looks like. Think about the person behind you cutting your hair….the struggle to keep you good looking and his need to feel appreciated…notwithstanding the fact, that he has the razor and the scissor on your head.
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