Notes from Day Seven: Deciding what to wear
I receive invitations to speak at churches
now and then. That's why I traveled to
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia not long ago. You
might have heard of this town. It has recently
been declared a UNESCO World Heritage
Site. And a few days ago, the Bluenose II,
the replacement of the original Bluenose
pictured on the Canadian dime, was relaunched
in Lunenburg with not a little fanfare.
Also, of a significance yet to be determined, there is the fact that I was born there. This is something not everyone seems to know. Actually, the fact is that not many seem to take note of it. And even when I point it out to friends, they generally do not, as far as I can tell, make much of an effort to record or remember it.
Interestingly (to me), there was also this about my visit: I was to speak at the church that my parents were part of at the time of my birth. That means that as an infant I had been inside it for services, and it also means that I was baptized (or christened) there. In case you are not familiar with the practice or meaning of baptism, please just google it for today. Hopefully the info you get will be more or less accurate. I'm afraid I won't have time in this column to say anything about it.
Anyway, what I want to get at is that the people of this church were, as I expected, kind. But I think that in one small respect I rubbed them the wrong way. These folks in that 250-year-old British colonial town were surprised that I didn't have a robe which, in their particular church, they were used to seeing on those invited to speak on a Sunday morning.
If you've ever been at a Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian or United Church service in Ontario (or most anywhere in Canada), you will be familiar with the colourful robes and stoles (longish scarves of material coloured for different times of the year) that the priest, pastor or worship leader wears. And often the people of the church will place a lot of importance on those robes; there is a lot of symbolism attached to them.
In other words, there is a sort of dress code for the leaders of the church. I don't want to put down any way of dressing that the people in churches find helpful. But it would be interesting to discover if in the Christian Bible, the main guide for Christian understandings, if there is any advice to leading figures of the church for deciding what to wear.
Well, as it turns out, there is a dress code in the Bible. But it's not the kind of dress code that is going to help the local priest decide what to wear for church services. I think, to be truthful, that it's the kind of dress code that breaks down barriers between church leaders and others in the church. It is a dress code that anyone, regardless of their role in the church, can wear. Just like in the old days in China when everyone was supposed to dress the same so that even Chairman Mao foreswore suits and ties in favour of factory duds.
The Bible dress code in a different way gives everyone opportunity to dress the same. Here it is. "Clothe yourselves with compassion, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another and forgive each other. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony."
Not to insult any reader's intelligence, but I italicized the important bits that I don't want you to miss. These are words that one of the Bible's writers named Paul (sorry, last names weren't invented yet) wrote to a fairly new collective of Jesus followers in the Greek city of Colossae around the year 50.
As you can tell, this dress code is quite useless in helping church leaders decide what to wear to mass or to speaking engagements. It is also of little help to the clothing store owners of the city's malls.
However, it is totally useful to anyone looking for help on how to live in, say, London in the 21st century. I would recommend it as the motto for the Fanshawe Student Union or any other association of people hoping to make the world a better place. And if it doesn't make it as the motto, the first paragraph in the mission statement would also be an appropriate spot for it.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
Also, of a significance yet to be determined, there is the fact that I was born there. This is something not everyone seems to know. Actually, the fact is that not many seem to take note of it. And even when I point it out to friends, they generally do not, as far as I can tell, make much of an effort to record or remember it.
Interestingly (to me), there was also this about my visit: I was to speak at the church that my parents were part of at the time of my birth. That means that as an infant I had been inside it for services, and it also means that I was baptized (or christened) there. In case you are not familiar with the practice or meaning of baptism, please just google it for today. Hopefully the info you get will be more or less accurate. I'm afraid I won't have time in this column to say anything about it.
Anyway, what I want to get at is that the people of this church were, as I expected, kind. But I think that in one small respect I rubbed them the wrong way. These folks in that 250-year-old British colonial town were surprised that I didn't have a robe which, in their particular church, they were used to seeing on those invited to speak on a Sunday morning.
If you've ever been at a Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian or United Church service in Ontario (or most anywhere in Canada), you will be familiar with the colourful robes and stoles (longish scarves of material coloured for different times of the year) that the priest, pastor or worship leader wears. And often the people of the church will place a lot of importance on those robes; there is a lot of symbolism attached to them.
In other words, there is a sort of dress code for the leaders of the church. I don't want to put down any way of dressing that the people in churches find helpful. But it would be interesting to discover if in the Christian Bible, the main guide for Christian understandings, if there is any advice to leading figures of the church for deciding what to wear.
Well, as it turns out, there is a dress code in the Bible. But it's not the kind of dress code that is going to help the local priest decide what to wear for church services. I think, to be truthful, that it's the kind of dress code that breaks down barriers between church leaders and others in the church. It is a dress code that anyone, regardless of their role in the church, can wear. Just like in the old days in China when everyone was supposed to dress the same so that even Chairman Mao foreswore suits and ties in favour of factory duds.
The Bible dress code in a different way gives everyone opportunity to dress the same. Here it is. "Clothe yourselves with compassion, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another and forgive each other. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony."
Not to insult any reader's intelligence, but I italicized the important bits that I don't want you to miss. These are words that one of the Bible's writers named Paul (sorry, last names weren't invented yet) wrote to a fairly new collective of Jesus followers in the Greek city of Colossae around the year 50.
As you can tell, this dress code is quite useless in helping church leaders decide what to wear to mass or to speaking engagements. It is also of little help to the clothing store owners of the city's malls.
However, it is totally useful to anyone looking for help on how to live in, say, London in the 21st century. I would recommend it as the motto for the Fanshawe Student Union or any other association of people hoping to make the world a better place. And if it doesn't make it as the motto, the first paragraph in the mission statement would also be an appropriate spot for it.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
