People often come up to me and ask for my fashion and make-up secrets. I was walking past K-Mart just the other day when the folks ringing the Sally Army collection bell said, “Hey, can we borrow that beard?” I’m always happy to share the techniques I use to get blotchy skin, wrinkles, grey hair, and all the features that say “Senior Discount Eligible.” But until last Tuesday night, I never realized I had The Look. One of the Shelter Week guests looked up at me with her big, clear, seven-year-old eyes, and said, “You look like God.”

Oh, you fashion icons: your fans may say you look divine, but you still don’t look like God.

I was tempted to poke fun at ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick at this point, since I’ve always thought him a natty dresser, and if his political career has hit the wall I’ve often thought he could go into fashion design, but he probably prefers the life of a software salesman in the Texas-sized state of Texas. However, apart from the picture of Kwame in the red dress, I’m afraid it would be mean to poke fun, and I don’t want this blog to descend into the mire. By the way, don’t you wonder how that teacher persuades all those boys to put on dresses? If you can get people to do that, is there a limit to what you can get them to do?

But I digress, and now I want to focus on looking like God.

Well, I was tempted to ask the seven-year-old how she could be so sure, but this is one thing the young are sure about, and rightly so. Adam (for those of you who got this far in reading the Bible) could speak to God right after he’d been born or created, but later on communicating with God seems more complicated, so it’s pretty clear that the younger you are the more you know about God, and I’ll take the word of a seven-year-old.

What was I doing right? Was it the yellow cord pants? the “tusk”-shade of my fleece? the purple yarmulka? Musta been the purple yarmulka! Always wear some bright colors, that’s my fashion philosophy, so friends and family can pick you out of a crowd.

Wait, maybe it’s not the clothes. It must be the merry twinkle in the wise old eyes, set in a laughter-wrinkled face. Or then again, maybe it’s the beard. Some say the beard is too long, but they can’t say that ever again, not for eternity!

Maybe there was something intangibly reassuring about my manner. Last Tuesday was the day I said farewell to office work. Does God look retired? Oops, that could be a theological question. When times are bad, is God out of the office (Deut. 32:20)? This brings us to the economic question: Are times bad?

No, times are great: I have The Look that fashion icons crave, and you have my fashion tips. Go don some color so you’re easy to find! (But don’t forget the slice of humanity for whom times really are bad.)

Oh dear, I almost forgot to add a link to Rabbi Jason’s blog. (Now that we have tzportz tzitziyot for tzweaty and tzmelly athletz, I wonder when we’ll see sports tefillin that you can wear all day, just as we did in ancient times!)