Sunday's best...

The women at the church where I have been attending wear hats on Easter.  It is sort of a big thing.  I have known of this for a while now and wonder where else I might go that day.  I do not wish to wear a hat, and I will feel even more the outsider, more the interloper than I already do.

Pastor Weedon has completely opened my eyes about tending to God's house, filling it with first fruits and the beauty He has given to this world.  That I can understand and savor more the incredible craftsmanship that permeates this parish.  Sitting in those pews is truly an awesome experience, and nearly every time I have walked through the doors, at least part of the service has spent gazing upon the magnificent Good Shepherd stained glass window and dwelling upon the wonder of His care for me.

But Sunday's finest?  How is it honoring God to wear the best clothing, to drape the trappings of the world about our bodies?  If clothing is clean and tended and modest, is that not all that should matter?  After all, I am a beggar, one who is crawling before the King for mercy.  What beggar wears finery?  Would that not be a false representation of his station?  The robes the King drapes about me are not of cloth, but rather woven of grace and mercy and forgiveness.  Silk and brocade are mere dregs beside them.

I am fairly confident that the pastor and the women would say that the wearing of hats would fall beneath the freedom of the Gospel.  But when most everyone is doing it, when fanfare is made of it, what freedom is there really?  I feel like I am back in high school, knowing that if I didn't figure out a way to wear Guess jeans, I would never fit in.  [Incidentally, by the time I managed to get those Guess jeans, it was too late.]

Too, what bothers me is that the focus on hats seems to take away from the focus of Christ's rising from the grave.  If head covering is the issue, why not cover them every Lord's Day?  And why covering of heads and not the eschewing of jewelry and make-up and dyes?  If a woman's hair is her glory and a covering, why not have a movement to grow hair long for Easter?  And why hats?  The covering of the early church surely wasn't hats.  Would it not have been a scarf or some other kind of cloth?  If covering is the focus, why not have many types of covering?  And if part of the focus is choosing a hat that reflects your personality, your style, how does that point back to the headship representation behind women having their heads covered and men not?

I find the whole thing confusing.  But I also feel pressure to conform, to be out scrounging around for the perfect hat.  Well, I do have a hat.  It is my floppy gardening hat, stained and bent and frayed a bit.  Actually, would such a hat not be a perfect fit to represent my self?  However, with no ribbons or bows or feathers or trimmings, so plain and dirty, surly such a hat would be an affront to the adding beauty to the day that also seems to be a focus of sorts. 

And I do not wish to focus on my self, my personality, my individuality.  Not on Easter. Not on any day I spend even a moment in God's house.  There is already too much me in my poor understanding of faith, too much focus on the self to grasp hold of the sweet, sweet Gospel for any length of time.

This troubles me.  I know that just about everything troubles me these days, but this does as well.  Back at my last parish, one of the days of Easter, one of the services, most people wore black.  I cannot remember which one it was, but I do remember how conspicuous I felt in my red silk jacket, how I was confused and spent far too much time feeling like an outlier and wondering what it meant that I didn't wear black. 

Someone warned me about the hats.  She warned me so I wouldn't feel left out, which was kind of her.  Only if she had to warn me does that not say something about the wearing of hats?  If I go to the church where I have been going, I feel as if I have to wear a hat.  I do not have an acceptable hat to wear.  I do not wish to spend money on such a hat.  I do not wish to go looking for such a hat.  And I do not wish to have a single moment of that day be about how I look, how I will be received, how I will fit in....

I am confused.  I feel pressured.  And I am worried that either way I will do the wrong thing...once again.

Do you think those who filled the early churches, who hungered after the sweet, sweet Gospel that had been given to them, searched their closets (or rather wherever they kept their clothing) for Sunday's finest?  I wonder when that came into fashion.

I do not wish to be home on any day I am able to get myself to the Lord's House.  I do not wish to miss any opportunity for the Lord's Supper that need not be missed.  And I do not know how well I will be then.  However, this weary heart of mine does not feel up to navigating the social waters of hats.  I am already floundering enough.

Oh, how weak I am.  Oh, what a miserable excuse for a child of God am I.  Oh, how I wish I could walk in the boldness of my baptism...the forgiveness...the freedom.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!