I have this urge again...

I saw a few people with shaved heads recently. I don't know if it was a movement of the Holy Spirit, or a curious draw to a more radical way of life, but I wanted to shave my head right down to the soft, supple surface. I don't know if this would work since I'm not actually bald or balding. I know many men who refuse to fight the hair-loss battle any longer and resign to the fact that shaving their head is a far better option than rationing out pockets of hair trying to comb it forward or sideways or what-have-ya...they cave in and just lop it all off much to the happiness of everyone around them. There is nothing that pains me more than seeing a man refuse to give in to the inevitable, holding on to every last hair and trying to be creative with hair bolstering alternatives. I applaud the man that puts down his comb and waves the white towel of surrender.

That is why this decision often causes such mixed feelings inside me. Will the hair on top of my head leave a dark shadow of stubble? Will certain lumps on my skull that I don't know are there make my head look ghastly? Will I have tons of little pimples on my head that everyone feels compelled to pop everytime they get within 4 feet of me? Is there dry scalp syndrome under there, a chaffing of dead skin just waiting to be freed from the canopy of soft, silky hair to be seen for what it really is? Are there birth marks under there that have the appearance of a rash or skin disease? Will I be surprised by a mole or two latently growing beneath the foliage? Will my moderate widows peak look funny? These are the questions that plague a man making this sort of asthetic move.

I also find myself thinking about the cold. I wonder if I'll regret this decision when the arctic winds of Michigan come against me. I wonder if I'll want to stick my hair back on with transparent scotch tape when all is said and done. I wonder if the hair growing out of the top of my ears will stand out even more. (I have nearly 9 aberrant hairs growing out of the cartilage on the tops of my ears). I wonder whether I will be able to keep my soul patch tucked under my bottom lip or if that will have to go with the rest of my head hair...I don't know if I can part with that. I wonder if there will be a distinct line between the tan of my face and neck and my snow white scalp giving me the look of Cruella Devil or a recent recruit to the army. I wonder if people will be able to listen to me when I'm speaking on Sundays or if they will get transfixed on my head and be transported into the Twilight Zone. I wonder if I'll be able to concentrate on anything but the lack of hair on my head when I'm talking to people. I wonder.

And yet, there is this underlying gravitational pull to just do it. To cast off all bonds and make a clean break. To run toward the unknown and embrace the risk on the other side of all these questions. I wonder if I will always wonder what it would have been like to be completely and utterly bald...if I will be on my death bed wondering what I may have missed, passed up in this hurried and frenetic life? What may have been in my marriage, my ministry and my future. What blessings were in store for me if only I would have trusted my instincts and not talked myself out of this barbaric, primal desire.

But what if I'm being summuned by the dark side. What if this is a ploy to disable me, render me imasculated and immobile? What if all that awaits me are sarcastic stabs and crossed eyeed glances of pity? What if I would look like Quassi Moto and be banished to the bell tower of society to live alone, cursed and undone? Would my wife cherish me the same, or would the very sight of me disgust her beyond recovery? Even when my hair grew back, would I be marred for life with a stigma? Would I ever truly be able to cover what has been blatently revealed? Would people walk by me and mutter under their breath, "I know what's under there, he can't fool me." I fear so.

My life hangs in the balance of this pesky thought this cold and careless morning.