"What makes an interlude in the dressing room a 'small s' sacrament? It seems far removed from what we often associate with the sacred: the hushed church, the practiced choir, the dignified leaders in vestments. In a sense, it represents what some preachers caution fervently to avoid: materialism, superficiality, an emphasis upon appearance at the cost of a deeper look at human beings.
"Yet I believe stubbornly that a certain grace permeates the dressing room where age and beauty cease to matter, honesty reigns, and affirmations abound. Mothers and daughters reflect each other in a ritual that must stretch back into the days when they admired their stylish new goat skins in the mirror of a stream. . . . In a sense, we're trying on different selves — and those closest to us help us choose the faces that fit.
While the ladies' dressing room has no altar, that's never stopped grace before. It creeps into the unlikeliest cracks and the most unseemly surprises."
