What I Don't Wear to Work

A pastor friend of mine, just posted this blog post about what he wears to work and why.  I started to write a comment and realized it was going to be really long so here is my response to What I Wear to Work.

On the typical day other than Sunday, you will find me in jeans (or a skirt in the summer), a blouse, sweater or polo and even occasionally a t-shirt.  I only wear clerical shirts on Sunday or for other worship services.  I'm defiantly the minority on the east coast, especially in New England where black clerical shirts reign supreme.  Oh which reminds me, when I do were clerical shirts, they are hardly ever black unless I have a bright colored sweater over them.

So why do I not wear clerics?  Partly it is my "spiritual heritage."  I grew up in the St. Louis area where my pastors wore black clerics every Sunday (though I don't remember what they wore during the week).  My family then moved to Minnesota when I was 14 and I hardly saw clerical shirts on a Lutheran pastor (the one exception being my campus pastor who wore them just about daily).

Once I went to seminary in Philadelphia I was shocked how often people wore clerics.  There was one particular classmate who I swore slept in them cause he wore them anytime he was doing anything in a class that might be collar worthy (i.e. saying the prayer at the beginning of class).  I also started playing "Spot the Collar" which is a delightful game when you count the number of people who are wearing clerical shirts even though they are not doing anything that would require "pastoral authority" that day.  The seminary record came the day that past and present presiding bishops of the ELCA came for a lecture series - it was like pastors thought that if the presiding bishop saw them in a clerical shirt they might be asked to be on the national church staff or they might get called to a nicer church.

Around this point I came home to Minnesota and had to ask my home pastors if they even owned clerical shirts because I could not remember seeing them wear any.  The male pastor said he owned two, one long sleeve, one short sleeve, both black and he wears them at Christmas, Easter and funerals.  The female pastor said she normally wears them on Christmas and Easter but that pastor Easter the clerics didn't go with her outfit.  (I love this as it is so hard to find a skirt that looks nice with clerics that is not black.)

I then went on internship and started wearing clerics on Sunday as was the custom of my internship supervisor.  On my second Sunday of internship, I arrive at the church 20 minutes before adult forum begins, almost 2 hours before worship begins.  I'm wearing a blue clerical shirt, but I don't have a tab in yet.  One older member of the congregation wheels by my office door then backs up his wheelchair, looks at me and says "I have to say you look much better when you wear your uniform, then you don't look like one of the other little girls running around here."  It was a WTF moment!

After much processing and further incidences with that same gentlemen (though he wasn't too gentle) I realized that my clothes really did not matter to him or to anyone else in the congregation.  What mattered was what was in my heart and what was in the other's heart.  If I care about someone's spiritual health and they know that I care about them, they will respect me both as a person and a pastor regardless what I'm wearing.

And what is the one place I wear my clerics the most outside of the church building? The bar!  We have a theology pub on Sunday evenings and sometimes my day is too busy to change beforehand, or since we don't have a working television I'll head down there in order to catch a Vikings game (okay not so much this season).  I have had some wonderful conversation with strangers at the bar, both while wearing and not wearing "the uniform", about faith, God, and religion.  I have found the shirt doesn't matter, again what is in your heart does.  When I respect the other's beliefs, the conversation for the most part is civil, engaging and insightful.

But I do wear the "uniform" to worship because I see it as a sign of the office of word and sacrament to which I have been called.  So when I preach the word or preside at the sacraments I wear my collar to remind myself more than others (since most of them can't see it under my alb) that this is my vocational calling and worship is the most important thing that I do every week.

I still wrestle with this issue, should I wear clerics more often.  Should I wear them to homebound visits?  Well most of the homebound members don't care what I'm wear but that I'm there to visit with them.  What about council meetings or other church meetings?  But clerical shirts have often been used as a sign of pastoral authority and to bullying people into do what the pastor wants, I am no more important than the other members of the congregational council, in fact I'm less important because many of them will still be worshiping here after I have moved on.  Should I even wear them to worship?  Still wrestling.

I've been called to preach God's word and deliver the sacraments but I am also who I am and that is part of my calling.  I'm a grown-up tomboy who used to always play with bugs and mud instead of dolls.  I'm a "domesticated feminist," as Bob calls me, who loves to bake, cook and needlepoint but yet I do it because I enjoy doing those things not because it is the "woman's role."  I'm someone who is more comfortable in jeans than in a skirt and therefore only wear them when it is hot out or for appropriate occasions.  I'm someone with horrible feet and therefore can't wear heels for more than a few hours at a time and never two days in a row.  I'm someone who loves bright colors and dislikes winter not because of the snow and cold weather but because the beautiful colors of spring, summer and fall are not with us and everyone tends to wear black.  I'm someone who has never gotten use to carrying a purse, as much as I have tried.  I am called to preach and serve but to also be myself, and I cannot be myself if I'm not wearing what I am comfortable in or if I'm wearing clothes that don't allow me to be me.