Clothes...or the lack there of! Here is one of my personal pet peeves. Dressing appropriately...or not. This culture has fostered a total disregard for approprite dressing. This topic could take volumes of sub topics. I'll delve into a few.

First boys (as in 20s and below). I remember going to church a number of times and seeing young men standing in the communion line wiating for Holy Eucharist. Many of them wore t- shirts that had demonic/Motorcycle gang/surf imagery of various sorts.

Several things ran through my mind as I watched this: 'Well that boy looks like a visitor...Hmmm. Better give him the benefit of the doubt...If he's not a christian or just bacame one I have the duty to lovingly accept him.' A few minutes passed by. I watched other boys make their way. "Woops...he's a member of our parish...not good!' A rapid flush of thoughts and images racked my brain as I tried to make sense out of this disjointed situation. A christian boy wearing demonic, worldly (as in violent) images on the back and front of his shirt while waiting for Christ's body to slide down his throat. We'll come back to this in a bit.

On any day while I'm driving through town I'll see young men clearly dressed as hoods, gang members or generaly undesirable characters. Baggy pants, worn low below the hips. Tennis shoes that look like they cost well over 100 bucks. Necklaces, chains and what not around their necks. Often times I'll see these misguided souls applying for a job looking like that.

There is such a disconnect in this society regarding what one wears and how one can expect to be treated as to boggle the mind. When I've spoken to many young men I'm immediately struck by the unspoken message "Affirm what I'm wearing! Get with it!...Isn't this too cool?...Don't you wish you looked this good?"

I must confess I am quickly becoming so alienated from the typical pop culture product these days that I fail to 'connect' with many of the young people...even on a rudamentay level. So back to the young boys at church- I contacted the rector and vestry board regarding this trend. All of them agreed that it was inappropriate. We concurred that visitors or non-christians should feel welcomed no matter how theey are dressed. Regular members or attenders should not parade around either in church or in public if they claim Christ as their Lord with clearly disreputable, ungodly attire. The rector agreed to call the offender's parents and address the issue.

All of us have read or watched the evening news on stories where one adolecant criminal stole from another boy some article of clothing he wanted or commited some violent act on another because they where offended by what another boy wore at school. This is plain insanity.

The scriture passage in the gospels comes to mind "Take no thought what you shall wear or the manner with which you clothe yourselves. " Christ goes on to describe how our heavenly Father promises to cloth us according to our needs. He further states that His followers do not concern themselves with that ( as opposed to the heathen).

It is such a waist of time and energy to fret over what we have on. Much of the time it concerns 'What the other person will think of me'. Could there be any more insane activity to engage in than worrying what a stranger thinks of us when it concerns clothes?!

There's so much more. I'll address girls on the next post.

S.  ¶ 11:28 AM 0 comments