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.