Coverings Part 2: Rectangle Scarves

To be honest I find rectangle scarves the easiest to wrap in a hijab style, and the most comfortable. However if you are a non-muslim trying to identity with hijab as little as possible, the rectangle scarf may be worn in a classic way, similar to the square scarf in the previous post. From Angelina Jolie to Condolezza Rice, the rectangle scarf draped loosely over the head, with one end, or both tossed casually over the shoulder is both chic and casual. If you want something more secure, draw the ends tighter or knot them either in the front or the back.
These styles only work for lightweight, silky and gauzy scarves. The warmer or thicker ones, such as pashminas are better for hijab, however the black and white photos show a pashmina-like scarf worn around the head, as is my picture with the grey pashmina.

There are a million ways to wear rectangle scarves as hijab, so I won’t go into that – personally I never use pins and go with a no-fuss style, but that's just me - if you want to look at different styles of hijab there are many many sites exploring different styles! Go crazy! :)

Coverings Part 1: Square scarves

Hi ladies!
well I decided to post some pictures of head coverings.. as a newbie headcover-er the most helpful part pf covering was look a pictures of people's coverings.

As I started sorting through pictures however I realised there were too many for one post, s I have broken them up into sepeare posts:

1. Square scarves
2. Rectangle scarves
3. Beanies, Hats & Hoodies
4. Headwraps
5. Al amirah, veils and ready-made coverings

The list is by no means exhaustive - I have just posted pictures and comments of the styles I wear and prefer. There are many sites for Christian, Islamic and Jewish covering, which I urge you all to check out!

I have blanked out my face in my pics because I feel the odd picture or two is something, but too many and you risk turning a blog into Facebook/Myspace, and unlike my Facebook, which is set to private anyone can see and use my pics! So this is not because I distrust my blog-friends and followers, or have huge modesty concerns over people seeing my face :)
ok so...


Part 1: Square Scarves

While rectangle scarves are in many ways more versatile and easy to wear, the square scarf (folded into a triangle) is a classic and more western look. From Audrey Hepburn to Grace Kelly, the square scarf has been worn with elegance and modesty.
Knotted under the chin, behind the neck, or to the side, it is worn in the snowy streets of Moscow to the sunny coast of Italy (paired with big sunglasses!)

I particularly like the bigger scarves, and the style of tying them so the knot is not visible and it sits further out, rather than under the chin. This tends to frame the face, making it look more delicate and slim. It also feels cosy and protectice, especially in winter!

Italian Chic

The next style also has jewish ties (indeed the model pictures here were from a jewish covering business). I think similiar styles have been called the "Jerusalem style" before.
The basic step is to tie the two end behind the neck. This style can also be worn like a western bandand, simply vary the scarf size for the amount of coverage.

'The Pony'

'The Butterfly'

Christian hijab & head covering - how to explain it?!

Well boys and girls, today i have 'hijab on the brain'.. or rather around it *groan* bad joke..

I recently found a whole sleuth of mostly Christian hijabis and even niqabis on blogs! Here are some of them:

Heather @ Non-Muslim Niqabi
Amber @ Little Steps Home

Stacy @ Layla Land

Sanil @ Barei Lev

Wow it really is mind-blowing to think that there are so many! I think of my scarf more as head covering than hijab, partly to differentiate to my muslim friends although i’m sure they all refer to me as “muhajaba” (someone who wears hijab) between themselves.

While covering for the Christian faith has a whole new dimension and is immensely encouraging, I always cheer on the non-Christian hijab/head coverers as well, mostly because I think it takes guts. And I believe it is the height of feminism (although I don’t consider myself a feminist) to wear what you want just because you want to!! Isn’t that freedom ladies?! I really believe even if I didn’t have religious reasons for covering, I should be able to simply because I like it! It makes me happy!

I generally don’t wear a hijab style but sometimes (not when it’s hot!!) I just want to swathe myself in material! Especially soft soft pretty scarves! Sadly, more often than not I don’t, unless i’m chilling at a muslim girlfriends house or at home, in the Middle east or somewhere random.
Maybe I’m too worried about people thinking I’m Muslim or that I’m a half-muslim Christian! The reason is I’m so proud of my faith and I want to be a witness for Christ! I also don’t want people to misunderstand my reasons for covering. . I think I’ve forgotten to mention my other reason, when I explain the biblical and religion reasons: because I just want to!!

I’ve never been able to master the two-minute answer to “why do you wear that on your head?” especially to aetheists/random aussies who I don’t know well. What do you head covering ladies say? What is the “quick answer?” (it’s especially hard for non-muslim coverers!!)

Generally Christian reasons are as follows:
- Head covering in prayer
- Modesty (especially for married women)
- An outer sign of faith and modesty

Have I missed any? Do any of you ladies have any other reasons??

Of course there are times when I don’t want to, or I feel an urge to dress up sexy with my hair all done and looking great! And it is during these times especially that my religious reasons are important.

I’ll be honest (and a little boastful) - since I was a kid my aunties, and various people would tell me I have nice hair. At the moment its quite long too. Don’t get me wrong there are times when I have horrible hair and I think it’s hideous! But sometimes it looks great and I just wish I could show it off! And yet when women see my hair on the odd occasion and say “oh you have such pretty hair” I feel shy, rather than boastful, and feel more convicted to cover. hmmmm

Sometimes when I’m getting ready, say for a dinner, a wedding etc and I’m already and my head cover is the last thing to go on, I think, “Is this ridiculous?” or “what’s the big deal? It’s just hair, I should leave it off!” More often than not my face will look nicer with my hair out! Or I think, what is the purpose of dressing up, trying to look nice, if I’m covering my hair?

Lately I have relaxed a little- before I would always cover my hair around men. But there are some situations when I felt it was silly to cover.
Like when a family friend would drop by and I would walk into the room unaware. Or to answer the door to a man. Or go out to collect the mail and have a male neighbour strike up a conversation over the fence.
Rushing out of the room to grab a head covering or quickly pulling something over my head just doesn’t work. Where possible I will make sure I am covered, but in this situation worrying that a man had seen my hair seemed over the top. It’s not a sin (as far as I’m concerned) and acting as if he has just seen you starkers only makes the situation tense and uncomfortable! Not to mention many of these people have known me my whole life!

Likewise swimming at the beach with a head cover just didn’t work. I have lost countless bandanas that way. I wear shorts/tshirt and keep it as modest as possible – but I just had to accept that beach dress has to differ due to practicalities.
Also whenever I am in an awkward situation (eg trying to keep all covered up at the beach ) I feel I attract MORE attention. What would be accepted as normal and not given a second glance by friends or family suddenly becomes a big deal when I act as though seeing my hair or knees is like seeing me in a bikini. Do you know what I mean? It reminds me of the ultra-conservative nations like Saudi-arabia cause even hands/ankles to become sexualised.

I have been thinking I will probably become a little bit more steady in covering when I am married – I feel like then it gives more gravity to reasons of modesty, and people seem to understand the concept of modesty better when you are married.

just some thoughts.. what say you ladies (or gents!)

P.S As I was writing this I noticed a post on the Barei Lev blog talking about this very thing, titled "Looking Like a Muslim" - it's a great post with some equally great comments.. and I think is going to inspire me to be more bold in wearing WHAT I want WHERE I want!

I'll let you know how it goes!

Much love, Pamela

What is a head cover??

Hello loved ones,

Today I'd blog on head coverings... Once I decided on the why/when of covering, I had to address the "what" - namely, what should I wear?! (Here I turned to the internet covering-community!)
Head covering can range from amish-style bonnets, head wraps, lace doilies, veils, hijab-style wraps, hats, mantillas, bandanas and more!
As head covering is not related to any particular denomination for me I have experimented with different styles. Usually I do cover all or almost all of my hair, so I don't wear less covering styles. Sometimes I wear large bandanas which show more of my hair.
Otherwise I head head wraps (the easiest style), square scarves (esp. silk) tied under my chin in an italian/russian style or tied to the side like a more modern eastern european style. I sometimes wear beanies/berrets and long rectangle scarves in a range of styles, occiasonally in a hijabi style, or over my head with an end tossed loosely over my shoulder.

Also any sisters who are interested in modest fashionable dress here are a list of sites of some clothing websites and also (my favourite) some fashion blogs, the best of which is a blog called 'hijabstyle.'

Peace, mercy and grace be with you all

some great fashion sites:

http://hijabstyle.blogspot.com/ (This girl is a 19 yr/old Muslim medical student: who has been asked to write articles on modest fashion in The Guardian, as well as websites.. her outfits are AMAZING.. and easily adjustable)
http://hegab-rehab.blogspot.com/
http://www.polyvore.com/evening_wear_for_hijab/set?id=5864913
http://rodan657.ro.funpic.de/
http://silkreveries.blogspot.com/2007/05/classic-headscarf.html

Clothes & scarves online – use them to ‘shop’ for ideas as well as actual clothes!
http://www.justlongshirts.com/
http://www.losve.com/
http://www.missselfridge.com/
http://www.headcovers.com/scarves/head-scarves/
http://www.coveryourhair.com/
http://www.funkyfrum.com/
http://www.tznius.com/
http://www.shukr.co.uk/
http://thehijabshop.co.uk/
http://www.taakhi.co.uk/ - I love the ‘accessories’ section –amazing brooches/pins!

Those little voices... when God whispers to you in everyday life.

Sorry for my extreme laziness... and my poor excuse for a blog! In my defence I have so much reading/writing for uni and the Students for Palestine group I help run at uni, that writing/reading is more of a chore than a release these days...
Also I find (1) as a talkative person and (2) as someone who can’t do things by halves, that in order to get my thoughts out I have to write HUGE posts. So despite the following (LONG) blog I shall endeavour to keep future posts short and sweet! Actually I think I’ll post this as a couple of posts, because I find one long blog is always off putting.. it’s easier to read when its broken up.
So the next few anecdotes are little things that have given me pause for thought over the last few months...

(What)To wear or not to wear...

A quick question for all you full time head coverers/modest dressers? What do you do for swimming? Or at the beach? I used to wear bikinis.. And I find since I changed my wardrobe a bit, people really notice it if I show more skin than usual!
It’s funny I didn’t think my change in dress was that noticeable; I don’t wear long flowery dresses or anything that looks out of the ordinary!..in fact I hardly ever wear dresses, unless its a nice maxi-dress or I’m feeling a bohemian hippy chic! My rule of thumb is modest..but pretty, fashionable, loose but not a shapeless sack or something that makes me look two times bigger than I am!
However one day I went out in jeans with a normal-length top.. a little voice was telling me “should you really be wearing that?” in the back of my head.. but I ignored it.. I like snug jeans.. theres nothing more comfortable.. but these days if my pants are tight (pretty much just my jeans), I wear a long top, or tunic that reaches at least over my bottom, or a loose white shirt belted at the waist (loving this seasons boyfriend-style fashion!). I met up with my friend M., who has only known me since I came back to Australia, and as soon as he saw me he made a comment admiring how my outfit showed off my body. (The little voice shouted “I told you so!”).. Apart from feeling acutely self-conscious for the rest of the day (Not helped by his ostentastiously looking me up and down and whistling) I was amazed to realise that yes, people (even guys) had noticed how I dress! M. Said something like, “Normally you always wear loose and longer clothing.” However although he said my outfit was “sexy” and I "should show off my body more" he also said he liked how I normally dressed. He knows why I dress that way and half off his comments were designed simply to tease me and watch me squirm with self-consciousness! I told him he wasn’t gonna see me in tight jeans again without something covering my booty!

Lesson learned: sometimes God or your
conscience (same thing I guess!) will accuse you in the strangest ways!

Lesson #2: Never under estimate
what people notice about you... Remember as Christians we put ourselves in the
limelight. People are always watching, so be careful not to think you can get
away with it when no one’s looking! (And God always is anyway
J)

Just when you think He’s not looking..

One very normal day when I was sitting on the train, feeling very normal as the train pulled into a station, a man near the doors (I was in the middle of the carriage) called out to me “Hello Princess! Hello!”

• Now I had been in my own little world, I hadn’t seen this guy, or made eye contact. The train was full (although not crowded) and I wasn’t very close to the man. He was around mid to late twenties and had the look of someone who may be either homeless, a bum, not “all there” mentally or any combination of the three. As he called out I looked up (along with everyone else on the carriage) to see he was looking at me, and in fact talking to me. He was beaming at me, and they way he said it, “Hello. Princess,” as thought I was the most beautiful thing he had seen. I was a princess. At that moment I had the feeling that God was speaking to me through this simple, honest man. Out of the mouth of babes? God was looking at me, this normal girl on this normal day, going about her normal chores.. and told me, “Beloved you are beautiful. You are a princess.”
  What could I say? I smiled back and said, “hello,” and he got off the train. As the train pulled away he waved and smiled, seemingly full of delight at seeing me, and mouthing “Bye! Bye Princess!.” Needless to say the entire carriage was quite entertained by the whole scene! I was bemused.. and then felt extremely blessed and well... beautiful. It was the best compliment I have ever had. As thought God had reached down and touched me with His hand.
  Lesson #1: Not matter how ‘invisible’ we are
  God always sees us!
  Lesson #2 : No matter
  who we are in the world.. God uses us!

Strength of my Life and my exploration into blogging

Hello all!


Well this is my first-ever blog, so let me introduce myself and my blog, starting with our names!



I am Miss Chatterbox. Well that is rather short and sweet, so let me introduce my blog; strength of my life. It popped into my head as I strained to think of somethign witty/meaningful/catchy/cute for a blog title (all failed on all counts.)

My God, my savior (incidently "My Savior, My God" by Aaron Shust is a great song!) is the Strength of my life. It is also the name of (another) favourite song of mine. It's a reggae song about God. Its by two very different and favourite artists of mine; POD - a Christian rock group and Matisyahu an orthodox jewish Reggae singer! How amazing that two different group/artists from different religions and music styles came together and found common ground in their faith in the Almighty and made a song to praise Him!

They sing:

"Strength Of My Life, whom shall I dread?/ When them evildoers approach to devour my flesh. /Even if there would be an army against me, /My heart would not fear. "


It is based on Psalm 27

"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the
strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes,
they stumbled and fell.

Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war
may rise against me, in this I will be confident." (v1 -3)

Head Covering & Blogging

So this is the who of my blog, now for th why. Around June of this
year, while I was studying in Germany I started looking into head covering.. and
it was blogs which were an absolute Godsend!

I will give you a quick run down: I was raised in a Christian family, chose to be baptised and commit myself to become a Christian at age 12. My family doesn't really have a denomination. We attended Church of Christ until I was 10, then our Church closed down and we started going to the local Anglican church, where my family still attends. throughtout my early teens I went to a Baptist youth group. So my Christian pedigree is somewhat mixed. It is enough that I'm Christian methinks :)


I'd say half of my friends are Muslim. I've studied Islam, speak some Arabic and have been to the Middle East. I almost reached the point of converting to Islam. I've always been a strong believer in not follwoing out of blind faith, always having reasons for what I believe and challenging my own ideas. It was in this spirit that although my heart resisted strongly I put my *convictions* where my mouth was and followed what I believe to be the ultimate truth, that if we truly seek the truth we shall find it. I decided if Islam was the truth, I shouldn't be afraid to follow it, and if Christianity was the truth I shouldn't be afraid to question it. Praise God I came to the conclusion that Christianity if the truth. However my journey with Islam helped me better understand Christianity and help form my own faith and understanding of my religion. Also seeing religion through both Muslim and non-Western Christian eyes showed the subtle differences in Western Christianity and wetsern society to other parts of the world.

And now to covering....


As a child I often wore head wraps and covers of some sort around the home. If Iwent to mosque with my friends (I still do on the odd occaison) I would wear hijab. I also often wore it in the Middle East. One of the things that confused me with Islam is that hijab and many practices in Islam (such as not drinking alcohol, fasting, saying "salaam alaykum" (Peace be upon you), and calling one another "brother" and "sister" etc) seemed natural to me, and these were things lacking in Christianity (at least as far as I knew). On the other hand Islam (like Judaism) is classified as a "Religion of Law," and Christianity is a "Religion of Faith." the emphasis and core teachings aroudn salvation very different between them. My heart clearly told me that Jesus teachings on law were true: that Law alone cannot save mankind, because of our inability to perfectly uphold it, and in His parable that if the Tree is good the fruit shall be also.
To this day I have a lot of respect for Islam and the people who truly believe and follow it. A desire to serve God is always a beautiful thing.


I got back to Germany from Pentecostal break (midsemester holiday) in Egypt in April/May feeling frustrated. I had often worn hijab, or 'half-hijab' while I was there. At the same time I felt that I couldn't; at the end of the day I wasn't Muslim! A month or so later after wearing half-covering head wraps a couple times (not such an eye-brow raiser due to large numbers of hippies in my town who often wore such things!), I stumbled onto some information on Christian head covering.



I was on a site for Muslim women (often visiting such sites), and the oft-discussed topic of hijab was open. Half way down I noticed a couple of comments from non-Muslim women who wanted to/were covering. One of them was Christian!! I clicked on some links here and there and lo and behold the cat came tumbling out of the bag!


I felt like a thirsty women given a giant glass of water! I sat reading for hours, amazed that Christian women from all around the world, and all different denominations had felt called to cover as I did!
I had never heard of the passage in Corinthians, and as far as I knew Christian covering was Amish women, and closed bretheren who wore small bandanas! And some orthodox women wore scarves (my Grandmother was russian.)



Well long story short I started covering in July.. gving it a "test run" of 3 days.. and finding that onn the 4th day I didn't want to stop! The days soon ran to a week and then 2 weeks, and finally it was pretty clear that it was permanent. And no, despite an insistent desire to cover it wasn't easy. It felt uncomfortable either way. And yes there are times (even almost 5 months later) when I wish I didn't. When I want to show off my hair with my girlfriends or wear that smaller top! (Clothing was also a big change for me.) It has also been a huge learnign curve, realising how much a slave to vanity and pride I am! And I wasn't even aware! It is an ongoing journey.


After a month covering I returned to Australia and it was like starting all over again. Reactions from friends were often horrified, "Why would you cover up your beautiful hair?!" or polite, rigid smiles from fellow Christians, quite obviously inwardly horrified by my percieved legalism. I have had a lot of support from Muslim friends, but had to make it quite clear about my reasons for covering and how they are different to Islamic hijab. Most have been understanding and helpful. There are still people who are unaware that I cover, or do not know the reasons why. I simply cannot sit down and have an in depth conversation on the topic with everyone I know. What to do!? There is often the perseption that I am "acting Muslim"... even though I cover under the Christian beliefs and understandings.

And so it has been almost half a year now. I still have never met a head-covering woman in person. (I did see an old lady in the street once.) I still struggle with it. I still spend too much time thinking about what to wear, modesty and people's reactions to my head covering. I still feel uncomfortable at times. I still learn something knew every day. And I still want to do it. :)

Bless you all, the Peace and Grace of our Lord be with you


love Miss Chatterbox