The Clothes Make the Person

Do clothes matter? Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know. I know that I've had a kind of funny relationship with clothes much of my life. And by "funny" I don't exactly mean clown shoes. And don't get me started on haircuts which I'm fairly certain were invented by the devil. I feel like a little too much of my life has been consumed by concern over my attire. What I like to wear. What I should wear. Why I should or shouldn't wear whatever it is I should or shouldn't wear. It doesn't take too much effort to recall my middle school years where we literally socially classified people by what kind of clothes they wore. We were cruel. And stupid.

Sometimes I have felt like I am supposed to care about clothes more than I want to. Maybe I was scarred by all those horrid trips to the mall as a child. I mean, of course I was. Sometimes I yearn for my grad school days when 2 pairs of jeans and 3 or 4 black t-shirts comprised more than half my entire wardrobe. Notably I once lived in a city where "casual attire" on party invitations could have been intended any number of ways. Then I moved to a different city where I once wore jeans and a pearl-snap shirt to a party and was totally overdressed.

I should also note that I have a job that involves a uniform and a good bit of playing dress-up. Some of my colleagues might frown a bit at that. Don't get me wrong, clergy peeps; it's not a judgment, just an observation. I dig it. I own a biretta, and I love me a cope! But let's face it, I've gotten drawn into one too many conversations about liturgical apparel. I also know that some of you, like me, have had experiences where your outward appearance took focus away from your actual ministry. I have a friend and colleague whose shoes were a topic of continuous conversation among some in our parish. I think these folks missed what a fantastic pastor my friend was simply because they disapproved of clogs or some nonsense, and I'm not overstating the situation. My uniform also elicits a wide array of responses, commentary, and questions.


So I have arrived at a peculiar Lenten discipline this year: For the duration of Lent I will limit my wardrobe to 40 items*. Oh, and I would blog about it. How did I arrive at this, you ask?

My wife and I discussed using Lent to purge unused and unwanted items from our household after so many conversations about how we have far too much stuff. We sometimes refer to the garage as "the shame room" since it serves as a giant receptacle of stuff we just don't know what to do with. Of course my closet and dresser is filled with clothing that I never or hardly even wear. Both of us independently read and were inspired by this article.

Then there was this piece which confirmed some of my suspicions about how my clothing purchases and what I do with unwanted clothing might make me complicit in some economic and social injustices in the world.

Finally, there was this little gem that offered some clever suggestions like giving away clothes and only wearing the same four outfits for Lent.

But all of this got me thinking about my (our?) relationship and even curious preoccupation with clothing, what it says about us in all manner of things (gender, class, culture, race, occupation, etc.), and the expression, freedom, burdens, and limitations we find in what we wear. And does God really care about what we wear?

My only other idea was to give up the first person, singular, possessive pronoun. And chocolate.

More to come on the whys and hows of this endeavor.

*After some debate and counsel from my wife, I decided that shoes and socks would count in pairs rather than singularly. I also wouldn't count clerical collars separately from clergy shirts. I also wouldn't count vestments. Go ahead and judge me, if you want to.