You may have noticed in the picture of me standing at the Continental Divide at Yellowstone that I have a beard.

You may also recall from the last installment of my deconversion story what my last beard had come to represent:

By the time I arrived in Jordan I decided to test the benefit of at least one Bedouin tradition, growing a beard. In the hot, dry desert air it was like having a radiator on my face, so I kept it while I was there. Once I got to Cancun, I found that it was quite stifling in the humidity, but I decided to keep it as a symbol of my struggle. When I walked out of that room on July 16, 2007 my struggle was over, my cognitive dissonance had come to a close, I was finally at peace, so I shaved off my beard.

Through my years in college and the seminary I would grow a beard once or twice a year, then usually shave it of after a few months. The most common time I would do this was in the winter time, but some years I would grow it out for the spring or even the summer. But, as time would go on, as it would grow longer, I would usually shave it off rather than trim it.

For the last four years I never went longer than a week without shaving. I had the habit of not shaving on vacations or weekends unless there was some special reason that I should (wedding, funeral, etc) and for the most part I kept to that, unless it started to look a little less like stubble and a little more like a beard. There were times that I thought about growing one again, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it because of what it represented.

This summer I had been thinking about it more and I decided that it was time to reclaim that symbol, no, to strip it of the symbol. In July 2007 that beard served a useful symbolic effect, but I have been free of that cognitive dissonance for quite some time, there was no reason to leave it as a symbol of anything. So that’s what I’ve done.

That being said, I just don’t think it’s the right look for me so I’ll probably shave it off soon.

Do you have any symbol that once had religious significance that you have or want to reclaim or strip of its symbolism?