Dr. Molly Ayn Jones-Lewis is a historian of ancient Greek and Roman medicine who teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She lives in a quiet corner of Baltimore with her spouse Rob, her son Jimmy, and her cats Tethys, Cato, and Juba. She likes bright colors, making textiles, and reading past her bedtime.
âDo you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodiesâ (1 Cor. 6:19-20, GNB).
This verse, as you know, is not one of the several verses in the New Testament about modesty, but rather it is about sexual sin. So it may surprise you that Iâve chosen this one to start a conversation with you, gentle reader, about my experience over the past few months with covering my hair during most of my waking hours.
I grew up in evangelical Christianity of the 90s as part of the purity movement, which urged me to keep myself separated from all things worldly. Sexual content was usually what the pastors were talking about, but anyone who was there can tell you thereâs more; giving up worldly books, friendships, and movie choices, and artists were all part of what I was told as a young person to avoid if I wanted to be closer to Jesus.
This is not going to be an essay about giving up or avoiding all worldliness; those âpurity sacrificesâ in which we painfully turn our backs on Dungeons and Dragons, Tori Amos music, and womenâs trousers lest we give the appearance of sinning. I had my fill of this in the early 2000s when the pressure to purchase âChristianâ alternatives to the beautiful secular things I loved was such an overwhelming part of my spiritual universe that every purchasing choice felt like a test of my love for Jesus, and my dollar was being extracted from me in a way that, I now believe, would have driven my savior to flip a moneychangerâs tables. Instead, I want to talk to you about an experiment the Holy Spirit and I took on together lately and what I learned from treating my body less like a burden to be endured and more like a holy creation and an image of God.
I am a Christian woman who covers her hair for religious reasons, and the decision to cover was hard not because I didnât want to do it, but because I didnât want to make other people feel judged or marginalized around me.
If youâre familiar with the Bible, the verses around covering a womanâs head are also familiar to you, even if you donât know many women who take these instructions literally. Paulâs reasoning has much to do with distinctions between masculinity and femininity; I wonât be unpacking that here. What often gets lost, though, is that his discussion hangs on the optics of a coveringâglory, dignity, and (I argue) care for our physical self.
Hair wraps used to be a normal part of dressing your body in premodern Europe, where my ancestors hail from. My faith tradition, the Catholic Church, stopped requiring head coverings in churches after Vatican II, and I support that decision. God doesnât care what youâre wearing, so long as you love him. Most people assume covering your head is something your husband asks for, but thatâs also not the case here. My husband was, if anything, a little put off by the thought that Iâd cover my hair around anyone who isnât in my household. Heâs an egalitarian kind of guy, happy to have a wife with lots of agency as his spouse. When my scarf usage became a daily thing, he was a bit taken aback, and Iâve heard similar anecdotes from other ladies whose midlife crisis manifested in dress choices.
Now that I have explained why I am not submitting myself to the Apostle Paul, youâre perhaps wondering why I still consider my veil a religious dressing choice.
I am a Christian with a rocky relationship with her body. Last Lent, I wrote about my struggles with chronic illness and the anger that resulted from living in a body that my God has not chosen to bless with a pain-free existence. Far from being burdened by my bodyâs needs, Iâve lived a life aggressively detached from them, denying pain and dysfunction so I can make progress in my intellectual goals. When I thank my Creator for giving me life, my body is seldom something I mention. And this, beloved siblings, is a problem.
Our bodies are a creation. They are good. Their needs, their frailties, their differencesâall these things are miracles of nature given to us to care for. In the wake of Covid, Iâve been having a personal reckoning and re-evaluation of what it means to be embodied, and how I might go about doing it in a more spiritually healthy way. You and your family probably have as well; decisions about when and where to mask, how to balance isolation and physical connection, planning travel, choosing a video conference over a phone call, all of these parts of our lives have new meaning in this new world where we recognize that physical connection is essential to wholeness and a choice that can harm the people we love through the pathogens we harbor.
Our incarnate God, who also had a body to dress and care for and live in, showed us that spirituality is not an exercise in ignoring âthe fleshâ or calling its needs evil. This Lent, I decided to do something odd that would help me to reconnect with the body God graciously made for me. I decided to give in to my bodyâs sensory needs by covering my hair and, incidentally, follow Paulâs dress code, if not his rationale, because itâs comfy and fun.
That is the other component to this choice; covering my hair isnât an act of asceticism for me. I am physically more comfortable when my hair is covered. Loose hair tickles my face, swelters on my neck, and generally makes me feel unsettled as I go about my day. Every time the wind ruffles it or I feel some of it moving, I get distracted and annoyed by the sensation.
The women of first-century Corinth may have gotten bothered by lusting outdoor men gawping at their braids, but I certainly do not have that problem! Men are much more likely to ogle and comment when I have a kerchief on. If âmodestyâ were code for âavoiding the male gaze in your culture,â hair covering would be very counterproductive in modern America. There is no such thing as purity armor; the problem is in the eye of the beholder, and you might recall that Jesusâ advice for people with an ogling addiction was not, âif your eye causes you to sin, tell her to put on a bandana.â
For me, the scarves I began to wear to work during Lent 2024 absolutely drew more attention to my appearance, not less, and I donât find that a bad thing because much of that attention is delivered in the form of compliments. Frankly, I feel that I look better in a scarf than with my hair done. The scarf stays where I pin it! It is sometimes brightly colored and sparkly! It matches my outfit and I get a little thrill out of composing pleasing colors and textures.
As with all clothing, the right item makes or breaks your experience. I had been occasionally wearing kerchiefs for years before this Lenten season, and this saved me from many common problems when dressing in a way your culture doesnât enable. Astute readers may remember Rachel Held Evans of blessed memory and her trusty beanie hat; a good starting place for many of us who get the head covering urge. But beanies only get you so far. They look odd indoors and are hot in the summer, and they wonât stay on your head easily. Barrettes are not a cure-all.
But there are communities of head coverers out there waiting to help, and here I must give a shout-out to Wrapunzel, a community born of Orthodox Judaism but encompassing head-coverers from every spiritual and non-spiritual community you can think of. Their community is great for the basics of âhow do I get this to stay put?â and also midnight worries of âdo I look weird, though?â The internet in general has done wonders in the âno stupid questionsâ genre of troubleshooting, and Iâve found tips, tricks, help, and support from people with belief systems wildly divergent from my own.
A properly worn head cover is lightweight, secure, and easy to put on. Donât give up until youâve tried a velvet headband, as I told a friend who wanted to know how I get my kerchiefs to stay put. Some days, she doesnât have the energy to put on an entire wig, and I donât blame her! Neurodivergent people who cannot resist the urge to fiddle with their baby hairs will be delighted to know that the right fabric will keep the wispies tucked securely away and feel extra soft on your ears. If you want to grow out your grey roots, itâs very easy to tie a tichel over an undercap and go about your day.
Finally, thereâs the âhead hug,â a phrase I never heard before joining headcovering enthusiast groups on the internet. For those unfamiliar, itâs the sensation of light, even pressure around your hair felt when wearing a properly fitted wrap. Many of us struggle to feel that our body is present and safe, and the sensation of a wrap can help with this. I was surprised to find that many of the people I was getting advice from in these spaces also live with chronic headache and sensory processing difficulties. The covering is a simple, inexpensive way to pair comfort with beauty in a practice that has absolutely nothing to do with attracting erotic attention.
Which brings me back to 1 Corinthians, a book that has been such a powerful tool for purity cultureâs abuses. What if, instead of viewing a covering as a symbol of authority or a tool for avoiding sexualization, we read it as a sign of care and appreciation for the bodyâs needs and comfort? What if the Holy Spirit lives in a vessel that is most comfortable in a head hug? Is there a dove of peace perching on my new yellow scarf with the teal sparkle threads in it?
I wanted to find out, so when Lent 2024 came, I decided that Iâd yield to my bodyâs pleasures by putting a scarf on my hair. I felt conspicuous from day one, since there is not much overlap in the Venn diagram of academic women and women who always cover their hair. The last time I had tried such a thing, my college friend and I got asked if we were Amish (no, but we knew Amish people back home). Still, few people asked me what I was up to either. Kerchiefs had been an occasional staple of my pre-Lent wardrobe, so it wasnât so jarring of a transition as it might have been. Mostly, people ignored it. The two colleagues who asked about it are close friends who know of my long history of spiritual eccentricity, and they were very supportive. I was relieved when gender non-conforming friends either took it in stride or asked for scarf-wearing tips; it turned into a new way to femme-bond. A happy surprise! I was emboldened. And then came Spring Break.
My department takes our students on a trip abroad every spring, and this year I got to co-lead a trip to Greece. I know, right? What a job perk! But this was the first time Iâd gone through airports with a headscarf, and itâs here that things became interesting.
Flying as a small white lady has been a relatively straightforward process. I find it daunting because of the unpredictability and high-stakes rules involved; I fret about how much unpacking will be involved, whom I will inconvenience because I forgot a step, and whether or not I will accidentally break a rule and get arrested. If the TSA agents are of the stone-face variety, I feel off-balance and disconcerted by it all. Sometimes I lose items because Iâm unpacking my carry-on while flustered. But I have never felt like people are afraid of me. This changed when I flew to Greece with a wrap on my head.
I have never before been taken aside and given a head massage by a stranger, and having this change was startling. I have lived forty-ish years of my life without having my hands swabbed for explosive residue, and suddenly it was happening every time I went through security. My students and colleagues were witnesses to this, adding to the awkwardness. However, it wasnât always a bad experience per se. I understand the safety decisions, and a good agent can make it a good experience.
I remember with fondness the TSA lady welcoming me to Italy who asked if my scarf was for religious reasons, and on getting a âyes,â she told me it was very pretty and asked for my permission to give it a quick pat. I felt like a human helping another human keep a community of strangers safe. It was fine!
But then there was Crete. The agent told me to step aside and, in front of everyone in the line, ordered me to take off my entire head wrap. I could have said, âitâs a religious cover,â but my students were entering a strange country and people were staring. I was taken aback at the break in routine. And really, I didnât feel confident enough to fight the order in that moment. People have been seeing my hair for years now, and I am not so much following a commandment as I am practicing a discipline. So, I unwound my scarf, exposing the shaper cap below (a rather bizarre garment if you donât know what it is), then taking that off and, when ordered to, undoing my hair elastic too. Scarf hair is a wild beast to unleash in front of a bunch of strangers. I felt, oddly, violated in the moment, shamed and singled out. She gave me a gimlet stare the whole time she swabbed my hands for explosives. I slunk away and tried to reconstruct my wrap without a mirror.
If you are one of my sisters who also makes odd fashion choices for spiritual reasons, you understand this feeling well. I had known, in the abstract, that this happened to people, but experiencing the discomfort was a profoundly moving experience. I left with a greater appreciation for what it means to protect someone elseâs dignity and care for their vulnerability. I am deeply grateful for this moment in ways Iâm still struggling to process months later as I approach Pentecost, my Lenten scarf experiment now extending months beyond its original end date.
Our bodies are a sacred gift, one the Creator of the universe also put on, for a time, to experience in its fulness both joy and pain. Modesty need not be an exercise in shame or judgment. And, finally, to physically care for the sacred gift of oneâs mortal body by covering it in a pleasing way need not be a harmful exercise in luxury or an uncomfortable sacrifice of concealment. It can be a mystery of great beauty and acceptance that deepens our understanding of love for ourselves and for others. The law of love includes these terribly fragile physical miracles where Godâs spirit dwells with us.
Happy Pentecost, sojourners.