The Vest as Metaphor for Spiritual Vice

And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard 

against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist 

in the abundance of possessions." (Lk 12.15)

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, 

what you will eat or what you will drink,  

or about your body, what you will wear. 

Is not life more than food, 

and the body more than clothing?" (Mt 6.25)  

I know what you're thinking: "You had me at vest."

I wear a vest pretty much everywhere I go (not to bed) these days. Most of the time I wear this vest:

Breaking News—No one has ever accused me of being a fashion trendsetter.  

I’m not proud. I’m not ashamed either. My mother and sisters, who had for years tried ever so gently to edge me toward what was in those days referred to as “preppy”, took one look at me after my first semester in college with my worn cargo pants and ill-fitting XXL t-shirt, and, well, they just gave up. Now I wear an awesome vest. I’m not even trying to popularize the vest, but if this does spark a new trend, far be it from me to stand in the way.

Don't tell me that I don't make this look good

I get a lot of questions about the vest. Questions like: “What’s with the vest?” And “Is that a vest?” And “You’re wearing a vest…” which isn’t really a question but the person’s voice goes up at the end which makes it an implied interrogative. There are also the haters who like to say, “Are you going fishing later?” or “Where’s your fishing pole?”—lots of fishing comments, basically. Sometimes a hunting joke. Occasionally I get a more refined photographer remark thrown my way.

Frankly, had I known how provocative a vest would be, I would have bought one a long time ago. Seriously, some of you are a little worked up about the vest. OK, OK; I'm a little worked up about the vest. Because it's awesome, and how could I not be worked up?!?!

People sometimes ask me if I wear the vest to work. I wear this business everywhere. Does it "go" with the collar, you ask? When I wear it, yeah, it goes.


But why a vest? It's a fair question. And I have two responses after some reflection:

First it's really about the stuff. The vest, in what it lacks in sartorial sense, it more than makes up for in function. As you can tell, the vest has a lot of pockets, and those pockets allow me to carry all the important stuff that I need. Wallet. Keys. Smartphone. Wee notebook to write all my important thoughts and sermon notes in. Pen. Rosary to help draw me in the Spirit's tether. Chapstick. Other stuff. In short the vest provides a convenience. Of course, many people have asked, why not a man-purse? This is a ridiculous question to ask a person wearing a righteous vest. A vest is vastly superior to a bag or purse. It's a purse that I wear about my torso. A helpful colleague did coin for me the term "murst", that is man-purse + vest. The vest keeps all my needful business in one convenient wear-around-your-torso-and-look-good-doing-it kind of place.

But the vest also does highlight something else and not unrelated to the first response: It's about the stuff. For good or ill. There is a lot of stuff that I am pretty well convinced that I need just to function on any given day as a human being. I mean, what if I didn't have all my precious stuff? Don't let's pretend that I don't use my vocation to further justify all the stuff that I need. What if I get a brilliant sermon idea, for instance? It's not like the Holy Spirit is on my schedule for inspiration. Better have a wee notebook handy--oh, and a pen, a really nice fountain pen. Or what about the smartphone in which I store further virtual stuff that I need?

It took weeks for me to refine this pocket distribution

As much as I like wearing the vest, and having all the stuff at my disposal, I recognize that, as with clothing and outward appearance, I do have an unnatural fixation on the possessions without which, I have convinced myself, I would not be able to do my job to the fullest of my abilities.

Is my vest a vice? It might seem like a bit of a stretch, but I do confess that my vest is worn in defiance of Jesus admonition to his disciples in their ministry of the gospel: "Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food" (Mt 10.9-10). Or as Paul--in the Epistle reading from the Ash Wednesday liturgy--suggests to the community in Corinth, "...As servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything" (2Cor 6.7-10). 

There is an absurdity to this reflection, I know. I would like to pause and acknowledge that I'm writing a fairly kooky blog in general, so in the grander scheme of things we might allow for some absurdity.

But I simply cannot ignore the fact that  I do take some equipment and a spare (and literal) tunic along with me in my ministry--whether I need all that stuff or not. And sometimes (maybe even often) some of that stuff might be just a tad more important than the less tangible elements of my ministry, as Paul in the 2nd letter to the Corinthians illustrates.

I am reminded of where St. Benedict calls ownership of anything a "wicked vice." In Chapter 33 of The Rule of St. Benedict, he writes: "Let no one presume to give or receive anything...or to have anything as his own--anything whatever, whether book or tablets or pen or whatever it may be--since they are not permitted to have even their bodies or wills at their own disposal...and let no one say or assume that anything is his own." We might balk a bit at Benedict's strenuous language. But I know that sometimes the stuff gets in the way, spiritually speaking.


 

Laundry

So, I’m not the most diligent blogger ever, sue me.

The upshot of having only 40 items of clothing in your entire wardrobe is that it makes packing for a trip pretty easy. A down side, if one can call it that, is if you don’t stay on top of the laundry situation, you can find yourself in dire straits.

When dressing I have and continue to re-wear items of clothing I have worn before laundering them—sometimes I wear things multiple times. It’s actually pretty easy for me to do this. I mean, the mental process isn’t that complicated. I briefly inspect for wrinkles and stains and then I half-heartedly fake-smell the article and then I put it on. I don’t actually go through the charade of fake-smelling; I'm making that up. My sense of smell is almost non-existent. I mean, I can’t really smell anything. Most things (and by most things, I mean, everything) smell no differently than a glass of water to me. Sometimes I hope to get picked to participate in some smell-related research experiment so I can totally jack up their results. Scientists! So complacent!

I’m not sure why I have a diminished sense of smell. I think it’s genetic. I googled “poor olfactory sense” and two items popped up about psychopaths and poor olfactory sense. And when it comes to being a potential psychopath, I already have one strike against me.

I am convinced that my mortality is higher than the average person with a better sense of smell. According to one webpage, I’m more likely to die or suffer serious harm from “fires, poisonous fumes, leaking gas, and spoiled foods” because I can't smell. I always have a brief moment of concern when I eat yogurt. Incidentally, my son recently started talking about "airport smell", that the airport has a particular smell to it. I think it’s like “new car smell” but weirder. He may be right. Smells like a glass of water to me. I’ve also had an ongoing phobia that I have terrible body odor that I myself cannot detect and everyone else in the world is too polite to tell me. Don’t you judge me; I was born this way. The bad sense of smell thing, not the B.O. thing. I smell like a rose.

This is where the Laundry Fairy does some of her best work!

Wow. I did not see that digression coming. What was I talking about?

To totally over think it—as I did with my underwear and socks—clean laundry is a luxury. Approximately 100% of the time when I lament that I don’t have “anything” to wear because “everything” is dirty, I actually have at least several other articles of clothing that I could, in fact, wear. This also has a lot to do with issues of gratitude and appearance, but let’s not get sidetracked here. This same lament also completely ignores the fact that in my garage I have these magical contraptions that wash and clean my clothes. And my magic machines are pretty fancy. Like one step down from flying the Star Ship Enterprise. And let’s not neglect the fact that in my household a good bit of my laundry gets washed and folded for me. That issue is for another time, but let’s face it, my wife does a lot of things for me that I regularly take for granted, God forgive me.

Laundry is thought of as the quintessential chore. A necessity and burden. I won’t bore with explanations about how doing the laundry has really been. I run out of clean clothes a lot faster. I have to do laundry more often. Sometimes I only have the option of one pair of clean socks. Sometimes I’ve needed to re-wear items. And when I’ve done laundry this Lent, I pretty much am confined to the house because 38 out of 40 items of my clothes are in the wash.

As I’ve already begun to explore, our clothes mean a lot to us and our appearance communicates a lot to ourselves and especially to others. Never mind a crisp suit or freshly polished shoes, or skinny jeans that were stitched by French nuns and aged in a Czech beer cellar and endorsed by Derek Zoolander. What about simple clean clothes? At the basic level, they might not convey a great deal, but what about the people for whom laundry is a real challenge...

This is how we roll. We're not proud. Or ashamed.

In my mind, clean clothes cost nothing to me, really. I do acknowledge that there is a cost to doing laundry. It’s just that I can’t be too bothered to think about it all that much. But how can I otherwise calculate the cost? My reflections haven’t been terribly deep. However inconvenient it is to do laundry for me, there are folks for whom it is a great concern the likes of which are entirely inconceivable to me.

I wish I had something more thoughtful to say about this other than to suggest that I am pondering how I might incorporate practices of mindfulness with regard to my clothing. And that might be good. I also tried to consider what Jesus or scripture might tell us about washing our clothes. But at the risk of venturing too much into a purely intellectual exercise, I'll instead plug The Laundry Project and the Laundry Love ministry that the Christian community Thad's is doing in Venice, CA (mad props to my friend Jimmy Bartz) as thoughtful endeavors that might help any of us practice mindfulness about our clothes and laundry.

A Tangent About Appearances

"But when the king came in to see the guests, 

he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe,  

and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?' 

And he was speechless. (Mt 22.11-12)

I may be venturing out into the weeds a bit. Whatever. I live my life tangentially.

It may be obvious to some who have read any of this blog that my Lenten journey (experiment?) has as much to do with appearances as it has to do with clothes themselves. But this spiritual discipline—if one can call it that—does have me considering how much my clothes and appearance matter to me. Well, really, to you. But to me. OK: to you, but to you solely about me. I suppose I thought that, in its seeming austerity, it would discipline me to think less about my clothes and appearance. To care less, really. Maybe not. And then I got all over-excited by my 40 articles of clothings thing that I ran off half-cocked with this blog thing. Well, we’re in it now, and there’s no turning back. And we got a little more Lent to go…

It seems that we can and do communicate a lot with our clothes and our general appearance. Any attempt to expound upon that intelligently would simply by skirting (see what I did there?) the issue that I have a lot of personal feelings and frustrations about it. Case in point: I still remember very well an encounter I had in which a former boss of mine noting with dismay the wrinkliness of a shirt I was wearing informed scolded me that I was “God’s representative”—his exact words. It stung a bit. It stings.

While a good part of me wants to convince you that our outward appearance ought not to matter much at all, I’m not so sure. My fear is that it may matter more than I want to admit. Deep down I think I know--I think we all know--that our outward appearance can send powerful messages, whether that is the intention or not, and be interpreted by others with the same measure. But should it be this way?

I’ve noted that a lot of folks have lately been taken with the work and ministry of Nadia Boltz-Weber. What little I know about her, she has a compelling story and is passionate about the love of Jesus. These are things I respect. I also know that she has tattoos. I mean, she has some tattoos. I know this because A) I’ve seen pictures of her; and B) People won’t shut up about her tattoos. OK, that’s a bit much. But pretty much everything I’ve read about her mentions her tattoos.

Let’s be honest here, I think folks are a little taken with her tattoos. Maybe not the tattoos themselves but that she has them. Everybody's all like, "OMG! She is a Christian minister and-slash-but she has tattoos! Wha...?!?!" Then I came across this:

It's my tattoos vs some guy's suits. And RHE vs every Calvinist guy on the internet and Mark Driscoll vs integrity. http://t.co/gJqWzBiuGi
— Nadia Bolz-Weber (@Sarcasticluther) March 16, 2014

The reaction was a little mixed among the twitterers. It made me want to find out more about her and her ministry. But then I also had to wonder: if she didn’t appear the way she did—I mean, if everything else about her were the exact same as it is now, but she did not have the tattoos—would everyone be as interested? Should I care that she has tattoos? Does she care?

Does it matter that Nadia Boltz-Weber has tattoos? Or that I don't? Or that my ears are pierced? Or that I wear a vest? Or a whole host of other such questions that I could ask but will omit here. Truthfully, while I say that I don’t really care that much about my wardrobe or appearance, I really do.

Probably have to circle back to this later on. Like, I said, we gots a lotta Lent.

Shoes as Metaphor But Also Shoes as Literal Shoes

As shoes for your feet 

put on whatever will make you ready 

to proclaim the gospel of peace. (Eph 6.15)

We’ve heard it said that before one judges another person one ought to walk a mile in her shoes.

Is it just me, or do we sometimes easily gloss over the more literal reading of metaphors? Like, would we ever actually dare to take someone else’s shoes and put them on our own feet and actually walk around in them? And if we did, would we learn anything about that person? I thought about talking about mindfulness and renting shoes at the bowling alley, but it seemed a little...visceral.

Well, we would probably never do this because firstly, social norms generally don’t allow for this sort of interaction. Then there’s the whole sizing issue. It would be complicated. We might say that we can tell a lot about a person from her shoes. And while I’m sure that the statement has some truth to it, we could easily turn it into: If you want to judge someone by their appearance, shoes aren’t a bad place to start. Shoes can tell you a lot about what a person does for a living, where he is from in the world, her income bracket (or maybe the level of income she wants to portray), his class, things about his culture or her lifestyle, or maybe even what he values. I confess that I do tend to take notice of what people are wearing on their feet. I also confess that I have, on occasion, made some sort of judgment about a person based on his shoes. God, forgive me.

Maybe there are too many shoe-based assumptions in life. I get it, it’s a slightly absurd claim. But I've committed to blogging about a slightly half-baked Lenten discipline, so let's just go with it. I’ve had enough experiences where someone has seemed a little too concerned about my footwear. And don’t let’s act like the church is immune.

Which pair is the most liturgically appropriate for Lent...?

Some of us cringe when we see sneakers poking out of an acolyte robe. And nothing ruins liturgy more than irregular footwear! I remember as well as anyone that part of the gospel where Jesus is all like, "So help me, if anyone dares wear their Converse All Stars on the Sabbath! Arrrggghh!" I once worked as an associate rector in a church where my boss admonished me one Sunday because I wore brown leather shoes instead of black. Later that day I also used my dessert fork to eat my salad at brunch, but whatever. The exchange included some sort of illustrative anecdote about how as a teenager he wore hush puppies or something to church one Sunday when he was supposed to acolyte and the verger or altar guild queen reamed him out and he was forbidden to serve that morning and he was scarred for life and then he became a priest. I’m not exactly sure what the deeper message in that encounter was. I have a few guesses, but I will omit them here. But I don’t think I’m overstating things when I say it was just one more moment where it seemed like my outward appearance in ministry mattered more than, well, anything else. Nor was that the last time that my clothes and appearance were questioned in my ministry.

I also remember a clergy colleague once describing the rector of another church as being the sort of person "who wore Birkenstock sandals." As in, not just regular sandals or flip flops, but Bir.Ken.Stocks. I’m not sure if the rector in question actually wore Birkenstock sandals, but I got that the statement was meant to imply something about not only him as a person and priest but also even his parish. I mean, what sort of parish hires a guy who wears expensive sandals. A hippie parish, that’s what. And everybody knows how upsetting hippies are.

Like I said earlier, I may have some shoe issues to work out.

They look fine as is, why ruin them by wearing them?

But picking out my clothes for this journey, I had some decisions to make. And the question was: does it really matter what shoes I wear? Notably I own (and wear regularly) more pairs of shoes than there are days of the week. But more than any other article of clothing I packed, I think I had to consider what circumstances would dictate what shoes I brought. Comfort, weather, activity, exercise, formality. Most days I like to wear simple canvas lace up (If they’re black, do they count?). I once refereed a debate between several high schoolers about whether or not Fred Rogers sported Keds or Vans. Normally on rainy days I wear water-resistant hiking boots, but how much does it really rain in central Texas? Well, having not packed my boots, my canvas sneakers are awash with irony. I also neglected to take into account that I would be spending a week in the piney woods of Texas and my Vans ain’t exactly good for hiking. I mean, they are lousy for hiking. I already mentioned that my wife had to talk me into packing dress shoes, which I dislike mostly because they are the least comfortable shoes I own, and I only wear them when I feel circumstances dictate. And even then only to avoid commentary or suspicious glances.

It’s hard to deny that western culture has some issues with shoes and feet in general. Ask any Episcopal congregation about their Maundy Thursday Foot-washing service and see how many people can maintain reasonable eye-contact with you. But if our shoes can communicate so much about us, and if we can assume so much (too much?) about a person just from their shoes, what then can shoes or our feet say about our spiritual journey?

I refrained from looking up every verse in the Bible that had something to do with shoes or feet. But moments that came to mind were: That it was a bold claim for John to say that he was not worthy even to do something so degrading as untie Jesus’ sandal. That is was scandalous for Jesus to have his feet touched by anyone, most of all a woman of notoriety. Or that Jesus, perhaps because words were not sufficient to supply the message, as one of his final acts, washed the feet of his closest friends at the end of their journey because where he was going the could not follow; and he would be going on ahead alone.

Finding the Face of Jesus at the International House of Pancakes

Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: 

"What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? 

A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? 

Someone dressed in soft robes?" (Lk 7.24-25)

Do not boast about wearing fine clothes, and do not exalt yourself 

when you are honored; for the works of the Lord are wonderful, 

and his works are concealed from humankind. 

Many kings have had to sit on the ground, 

but one who was never thought of has worn a crown. (Sir 11.4-5)

Fair warning: this one isn’t about my clothes.

One thing I’ve discovered it that the world of fashion…it’s exhausting. I needed a break! You didn’t really think this was all going to be about clothes, did you? I do know that some of you are anxiously awaiting my entry on the vest. All in due time, brothers and sisters.

So what is it about? Well, it is about appearances. Sort of. And that kind of fits, right? I mean, I’ve already touched upon how clothes can affect (screw with?) our perceptions of others and most certainly of ourselves. Some of this has me thinking: what is it that we see when we look at a person? I can tell you already, that I’ll probably have a lot to say about this when we get to shoes. Got a bit of shoe baggage I gotta work through…

Some background: About a year ago, after some significant spiritual reflection, I stumbled into the spiritual concept or practice of mindfulness. Now, I’m not an expert or even terribly knowledgeable, so I will spare you my ramblings on the subject. And mindfulness might give rise to all sorts of connotations for you, dear reader. So, I’ll sum it up this way: I found that I was suffering spiritually because I was always wallowing in the past (amid regrets and resentments of old) or flying around wildly in some fearful fantasy of a future. I was missing the present. In more ways than one. And if, like me, you feel that you are often not living in the present, but reacting to the past or a not-yet-realized-and-unlikely-to-actually-come-to-pass future, then mindfulness might be helpful to you.

I'd rather discuss my experience with mindfulness. After reading a book called Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh, I embarked upon the informal practice (meaning, there’s not a particular method; I just “do” it, but without really “doing” anything) of what I call meditating on the holy face of Jesus in my everyday life. To do this, all one needs to do is to look at the faces one sees in  one’s daily life—a good place to try this is in the grocery store—I mean, really look at those faces, and see if one cannot find the face of Jesus in those faces. You also have to breathe. And you have to use a little imagination—this is where appearances, or rather the looking past them, come into place. You also—per Thich Nhat Hanh’s recommendation—have to smile. Because here’s the thing: what if you really saw Jesus? I mean what would you do? I kind of think that if I really saw him, I would probably smile. I would probably do a lot of other things, but smiling would likely be near to the top of the list. If you try this meditation on the face of Jesus, you might discover Jesus presently in you midst (and you will smile, trust me). You might also experience a deep sense of humanity—your own especially. You can also try it while driving, but the whole automobile thing makes the objectification of others hard to overcome. Takes a lot more imagination. I usually end up pretending that the person who cut me off is in a hurry to get somewhere particular due to intestinal distress. Intestinal distress can be rather humanizing. So very humanizing.

So, the other day I take my kids to the International House of Pancakes. Mostly because I like to eat breakfast, and my son once declared an evening at an IHoP to have been “the best dinner” he’d ever eaten. And while we are there, my 1.5 year-old daughter starts blowing kisses to people. Now this isn’t strange to my wife or I. We spent weeks if not months teaching her this little trick. And true to what seems like basic cognitive development, our daughter has learned that when she blows kisses to anyone, she generally gets a pretty favorable reaction. She loves the way people act all crazy about a toddler blowing them kisses. She's into it.

Is this not the face of Christ?

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m prejudiced when it comes to my kids. I think most of what they do is generally an indication of the burden of genius that they will bear the rest of their days. But what struck me was her whole practice of blowing kisses. Most of these daughter-blown kisses are to complete strangers. And these kisses are indiscriminately kissed out to all sorts of folks. In fact, I’d say about 10% of those kisses, the recipient doesn’t even notice; our daughter does not care. But I also noticed really to whom she was blowing these kisses. Our daughter doesn’t just blow kisses to people who look like my wife or me.

Now before I get all wistful dad and start talking about how one day my daughter <sniff> won’t blow anymore kisses, what I really thought was so revealing about breakfast at IHoP the other day, was that I wonder if I could get back to that place spiritually, to where my daughter is now. I know my daughter’s one-and-a-half, and this is probably not a part of her mental process.

But if I were able to look in the face of a human stranger, and move beyond all assumptions and barriers based on outward appearance and also beyond my own self-consciousness, and then both experience and express the compassion and love that God is showing to all of us, I mean, if I could do that, if it could be done… Would I see God?

Well, then I would smile.