What do you carry in your pocket or purse that's like a church bell? Car keys, change, a handkerchief, billfold or compact? Perhaps the best answer to the riddle is your comb! The next time you use your comb, like a church bell, let it call you to prayer! "Prayer?" you might ask. "As I'm combing my hair?" While not usually associated with prayer, daily grooming is an ideal "church bell" since no one neglects it. Such comb-prayer is not only ideal for our busy lives — since we seem to never have time for prayer — it's also an ancient prayer form! . . .

I propose the following theory about hair prayer, not as an explanation to the mystery of combs and worship, but as a new way to pray. Grooming, even our custom of carrying a comb or hairbrush, is an activity overripe with possibility as a new way to "pray always." Early Christians did not restrict their prayer to when they went to church, since they didn't have churches — their homes were their places of worship. While they had set times of prayer, they also were eager to pray always as Jesus had encouraged them. Furthermore, they lived in a culture hostile to their faith and so daily lived in fear and in danger of death.

Each knock at the door could have meant prison or torture, and so an early Christian's comb was a marvelous reminder of the words of Jesus about how all-embracing is God's protection of them. "All will hate you because of me, yet not a hair of your head will be harmed. By your patient endurance you will save your own lives" (Lk 21:17-19). It would have been a small step to invest one's daily grooming with those words as a reminder of God's constant care.

Today, a pocket comb and handkerchief are usually among the objects found in a man's pockets. Women carry combs and hairbrushes in their purses. In effect we carry a constant reminder of a way to pray always. Each time you comb your hair as part of your daily grooming, recall God's loving care for you. In times of fear or danger hold your comb in your hand as a sacramental and pray the words of Jesus, "In very truth, even the hairs of your head are counted! Fear nothing, then. You are worth more than a flock of sparrows" (Lk 12:7).

— Edward Hays in Feathers on the Wind