I got a call a week ago from a woman asking me to meet with a member of the temple presidency about possibly becoming an ordinance worker. My Bishop and SP had both suggested my name. I was honored that they had confidence in me, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea; I’m already Executive Secretary, which isn’t a bad gig but it does mean meetings starting at 6:30 a.m. on Sundays, so I wasn’t exactly sure about the possibility of adding another substantial calling on top of that. But I have always enjoyed spending time in the temple, and I have friends from around the stake who serve there, so I resolved to approach this possibility with an open mind.

This morning I had the interview with the temple president. When he met me he asked if I were the famous Kevin Barney, which surprised me a bit, but I acknowledged that yeah, that was me. He was very warm and nice and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. We got to know each other for awhile, and then turned to the business at hand.

In thinking about the possibility I had several deal breakers in mind. I couldn’t do any evening shift, due both to my commute by train from the city but also due to my glaucoma and trying to limit my driving in the dark. That turned out not to be a problem, I could just do Saturdays. I was hoping for two four-hour shifts a month, but the only four-hour shifts are in the evenings. The first Saturday shift starts at 6:30 a.m. (!) (and I’m over a half-hour drive from the temple), and there was no way I was going to sign up for another weekend meeting starting that early. But there was a later shift from 11:00 ro 4:30, and I decided that one seemed more reasonable. My bad eyesight meant I wouldn’t be able to do initiatories until I could memorize the text, but I can memorize pretty quickly and easily, so again, no problem there. I would have had to buy some temple clothing from the Distribution Center next door (in particular a suit jacket and white shoes); but again, that would have been perfectly fine.

And so it looked like it was maybe going to happen. And then there was one last thing: I would have to shave.

I hadn’t been sure whether that was a requirement, and in preparing for this I had tried to search online and it looked like temple workers being clean shaven maybe was a temple specific policy. But no, it turns out it is a church-wide requirement. So I had to tell him sorry, but that was a deal breaker. (I have often expressed that in the very unlikely event I were called to be a bishop, if shaving were a required part of the deal I would similarly decline the calling.)

I felt he deserved an explanation, so I tried to explain it to him this way: It is true that President Nelson holds almost all of the keys in the Church, But there is one key he does not possess: my wife holds the keys over whether I wear a beard or not.

There is a very good chance I wouldn’t even wear a beard today had I not attended BYU. Over Christmas break my senior year at the Y, I let my beard grow. The first Sunday back before classes, I was amused to see that over half of the men in my married student ward were similarly wearing vacation beards. I had never in my life grown a beard out before. And as fate would have it, my wife decided she really liked it. So we agreed that I would shave for my last semester and then grow the beard back after graduation. That was in 1982, and I’ve worn the beard ever since. I am tall and thinnish (6’5″ 230), and so my face is sort of long and thin also. My wife is an artist, and she likes how the beard aesthetically softens the length of my face.

Thankfully for us both, President Nelson doesn’t have to try to find me attractive, but my wife has that difficult task, so if she wants me to wear a beard, I’m going to wear a beard. Period. And she definitely wants me to keep the beard, and I had explicilty promised her I would not shave it if that turned out to be a requisite of the calling.

I keep the beard closely trimmed. Wearing it has nothing to do with being a 60’s hippy or any sort of rebellion, as our general leaders seem to perceive beards. For me it’s purely an aesthetic choice.

The temple president was a good sport about losing a potential worker (if maybe a touch perplexed that I would bow so completely to my wife’s wishes on this score), and I enjoyed the experience regardless. But there is a cost to the Church continuing to perceive beards as though it were still the sixties or seventies.