Yesterday morning we visited a garden centre. Predictably there were Halloween pumpkins on display – together with spiders, bats, skeletons… and witches’ hats.
There was also a Christmas display – with Christmas carols playing! There were lights, nutcracker soldiers, sparkly trees, prancing reindeer… and Father Christmas hats.
Later we visited Titchwell Nature Reserve. Folks were there with all the gear – cameras, scopes, tripods; with our humble binoculars we decreased our avian ignorance a little, watching godwits, avocets, redshanks and curlews.
One gent, looking through an expensive looking bit of kit, said, ‘I’m flummoxed! It looks like a wigeon but it’s too big!’ His friend couldn’t help. Another couple had greater expertise. Bird identification to them was easy… The ‘experts’ were wearing floppy, dirty brown, bird watchers’ hats. The gent and his friend wore no hat. Then it struck me.
It’s all about the hat!
I reflected on the morning… witches must wear their black hat to do witching; Santa can’t do his Clausing without a red and white hat. It’s all about the hat.
Reflecting on my theory…
Sherlock Holmes couldn’t do sleuthing without his deerstalker. My childhood cowboy heroes couldn’t do cowboying without their cowboy hats. North Sea fishermen always wore oilskin sou’westers – so I guess that helped them to catch more fish. And in my childhood church all the women of a certain age wore hats, presumably to make them pray or sing better… It’s all about the hat!
Musing further…
The only hat I remember Jesus wearing was a crown of thorns… perhaps helping him do what he had to do?
As children we played Bible happy families… collecting sets of four… the gospel writers, the places the sower’s seed fell… and four crowns – crown of thorns, crown of life, crown of glory, crown of righteousness…
A sermon many years ago taught me that Jesus wore a crown of thorns so that I could wear the crowns of life, righteousness and glory.
Perhaps that’s another example of my theory.
It’s all about the hat.
