What’s In Fashion These Days?

Blake Coffee has a post online that made me laugh and think. He mentions the television show "What Not to Wear." I've seen this show with my daughters, and it's kind of funny and also kind of sad. It's funny to see the old, out-of-date clothes that people wear, but it's sad to see how serious these people take fashion. They are the legendary fashion police. They break into your home and go through your closet, shaking their heads and saying, "Shame on you for wearing this!" The priorities involved are so skewed. Blake wonders what it would be like if we treated our lives and our personalities as seriously as these people treat fashion. What spirit were you clothed in before, and how will you be clothed now in the Spirit of God?

I have never actually sat down and watched What Not To Wear on TLC. It is, I believe, one of a hundred or so “fashion reality shows” which have captured the TV-watching world’s attention. My very limited understanding of it is that the hosts and fashion consultants on the show invade the home of a poor, unsuspecting person whose friends have sold him or her out and throw away all the old clothes in his or her closet which constitute clear fashion risks. When you think about it, it is a pretty humiliating process to have your friends hate your clothes so much that they put you on national television to get you to change. Come to think of it, I suspect my teenage daughters would love a shot at my own closet for this very purpose (dads can be so very uncool). But the truth is, we all have worn things we would be thoroughly embarrassed to wear today (e.g., take a look at the wedding pictures of anyone married in the 70s or 80s). To put those things on today and be seen in them would be, well, pretty horrible. This, I believe, is a near-perfect illustration for the discipline of living “in the Spirit”. ...Read More