It’s that time of the year again - the time of the year where there are beards and hair galore! On Tuesday, November 1, the month of November for the year 2016 started. As much as I love No-Shave November, there may be some interesting societal aspects to this annual event.

If you walk up to a guy with a patchy beard on the street and ask him if he’s donating the money he’s saving to prostate cancer, you’re very likely to receive a puzzled look at the least. Ideally, the money saved on not buying shaving supplies is supposed to be donated to Prostate Cancer funding. I forgot and my friend definitely received a funny look!

Now that the origins of No-Shave November are established, why might we forget? A simple explanation is that the activity outweighs the cause. The same thing happened with the ASL Ice Challenges. It’s fun to not shave and see how your hair grows in, post selfies, and let all your friends know, but it’s an entirely different concept to go to the website for the Prostate Awareness then actually donate money. That can’t be shared on Facebook!

It is incredibly fun to grow out a beard though! A bearded man is the epitome of manliness. Beards can even precede the actual man himself. I’ve just recently converted my full beard into a goatee! My face was covered with hair since the summer before my freshmen year of college so some of my friends had never seen my bare cheeks. It’s amazing to walk through campus and see some of the faces or greet somebody and see their eyes get really wide. People had always known me to have a beard and it was weird to see me without one!

Beards have evolved throughout the centuries right alongside the clothing style and other aspects of a society. Being the biblical scholar that I am though, I always think of beards in the Bible. The one that sticks out to me is Samson’s beard. The fascination I have with this character is the fact that the story never really says he has a beard. The story emphasizes his hair never being cut, but it is stated that a razor will never touch his head so this has to mean face too! Samson’s character is also fascinating because it’s hard to find a more macho man than Samson. The guy wreaked havoc on the enemy of his people.

Samson was not able to share his feats on Facebook. Like I said before, the problem with any fundraiser like No-Shave November is that the activity outweighs the cause. Is this a problem with fundraisers or is it deeper than that? The concept of doing something good behind the scenes seems foreign. Of course we can jump on something fun and we can plaster that all over social media, but it’s another thing to actually do the good deed. Yes, you should go on and donate the money, but also try to do the good thing when nobody is looking. Life isn’t about you. Life is about how you love those around you.

Secretly Good,

JS