Aw mah gah, we’re all freaking out about GA, our Unitarian Universalist denominational conference. It all begins Tuesday with Ministry Days (affectionately known within my circle as “Misery Days”), and opens with a bang on Wednesday night with the Opening Worship with all the lay delegates in attendance.
A friend and colleague who is in the midst of a move joked about wanting a jeans and T-shirt dispensation, which I denied even though she didn’t ask me personally. She’s a rock star! No matter how tired you are and no matter how buried in boxes your wardrobe may be, when you’re an exciting religious leader you just gotta find some real clothes.
A couple years ago I dressed comfortably for GA, but my colleague Andy Pakula said he EXPECTED MORE FROM PEACEBANG, so now I have to actually think about what I’m packing. Ugh. If I’m not presenting, I feel that I should be able to wear normal day-at-the-office clothes with a very slight upgrade. I certainly don’t feel that anyone who isn’t presenting should feel obliged to wear the kind of professional attire we should wear for formal occasions. But that darned Andy.
When I started this blog eons ago, ministers would go to GA wearing sweaty T-shirts and Tevas, and they had fungus toenails and scaly leg skin. You never saw a skirt at Ministry Days, and nary a structured jacket in sight. It was as though we were all at summer camp or on retreat and it was very disheartening. All those people with “Rev.” on their nametags gathering in one place and looking so utterly unkempt — quelle depressing! These days, however, we’re a much more shiny and put-together bunch and Mother PeaceBang feels that she may someday be able to put her feet up and say, “Bring me an mimosa, imaginary personal assistant, my work is DONE.”
But then I heard a dear colleague say today that he has committed pre-meditated, cold-blooded preaching in a T-shirt, so I know my work is not done. But a girl can FANTASIZE.
Please do not think so hard that you think yourself into thinking that it’s okay to preach from the pulpit in a T-shirt. It is almost never okay to do so. People have died to assure and protect our religious freedoms. They deserve so much more than a cotton garment that was designed to soak up sweat from the bodies of laborers and just happened to earn a place in public view by the virtue of the American descent into sloppiness. That was a run-on sentence, I know. But I’m upset. A pulpit is a symbol of ministerial authority granted a minister by the congregation that installs him or her in that pulpit. I cannot personally think of standing to preach the word of God while wearing a T-shirt as anything but a disgrace to that honor. HOWEVER, in this particular case, I think my colleague was wearing a message T-shirt. I understand the instinct there, and it may have been a good message and it may have felt important for the minister to be seen literally bearing that message on his own body. There’s an argument to be made there. I can imagine a minister preaching in a message T-shirt making a powerful statement, but I can also imagine too clergy preaching in, say, a Vacation Bible T-shirt to promote the summer program, and that’s a mistake. Our bodies are not billboards and we do not diminish the profound honor and responsibility of preaching from the pulpit (or in front of the pulpit, but you know what I mean) by doing so in a garment that, until recently in history, was one no self-respecting person would be seen wearing out of the privacy of their own home or while cleaning out the garage.
As your New York agent, I must advise my female colleagues to never, under any circumstance, preach in a T-shirt. Long story about sexism and authority and not undermining your own and so on.
That was a disgression. I digress.
I’ll whine more about packing for GA tomorrow, if I get around to it. Good luck, UU clergy who are joining me in this annual irritation of packing for GA! I, too, hate trying to figure out what to bring. Especially shoes. All I know is that I won’t be wearing any message T-shirts, unless they look really cute under a denim jacket.
Packing for GA and a week-long trip AFTER GA is double-fun! But it takes more kvetching skills than I possess to be credible, when we’re going to a nice place for a vacation, one that just happens to be hosting an international jazz festival when we’re there. Glad I don’t have the pressure of being Peacebang, but I am aware that her watchful eyes are everywhere. [Sweetheart, you know that Victoria Weinstein is WIPED OUT TIE-TIE from her big year. PB’s eyes are everywhere but VW’s eyes are going to require buckets of caffeine just to stay open! – PB/VW]