Bulletin Articles: Full Article for Record Number 1005
Appropriate Attire
by Larry Ray Hafley
"Humorist David Sedaris hit the nail on the head when penned this...truism: Americans show up in France looking like they’ve come to mow its lawns.
"We’re...messy and sloppy. Nowhere was that more in evidence than last week in the Capitol Rotunda, where so many Americans filed past President Ronald Reagan’s coffin looking as if they had set out for Wacky Waterland and gotten lost: flip-flops, tank tops, denim shorts, oversized T-shirts. Did they mistake the occasion for a cookout?
"Had they come to honor a president-and one of the last holdouts from a gentlemanly age-or were they just trying to get on television? And if they were trying to get on television, did they forget that Reagan’s funeral was...being beamed to the whole world? Yes, the world was watching how we ’pay our respects,’ and nothing tells them more than how we present ourselves. Our leaders looked sharp....The rest of the world’s leaders looked sharp....It’s the Average Americans who let us down.
It’s one thing to wander Paris in sneakers, (and) fanny packs....It’s tacky, it’s kind of rude, but it’s relatively harmless. It is another thing to file past the coffin of a former president wearing clothes that say, ’My comfort is more important than national dignity’....(But) some things are more important than our personal comfort. The death of a president is one of them" (Nicole Neal, Houston Chronicle, 6/15/04, 7D).
Apparently, appropriate attire is something Joseph and David knew. "Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him quickly out of the dungeon; and he shaved, changed his clothing, and came to Pharaoh" (Gen. 41:14). "So David arose from the ground, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped." (2 Sam. 12:20). "In like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works" (1 Tim. 2:9, 10).
Do you ladies wear an evening dress with heels, or you men a suit and tie to a picnic on July 4th? I didn’t think so. As you know what is appropriate attire for such a function, surely you know how to dress when you attend a wedding, a funeral, or a church service.
My aunt Katie was a dear old soul, a poor, plain and simple country woman, but she said she would not go to church "looking like something the cats drug in." Unfortunately, some today will. In the days before we had air conditioning, my mother told me I could be in the house without a shirt on if I were getting ready to take a bath, otherwise, not. And, she added, "unless you’re fixin’ to chop wood, your shirt-tail better be tucked in, too!" Since I had an aversion to chopping wood, I always had my shirt-tail tucked in!
Yes, fashions and cultures change, but good manners, modesty and neatness never go out of style. Try them on and see.
