The Clothes We Wear

The Clothes We Wear

Rob Gieselmann, July 16, 2017

Charles Eastman was a Native American doctor and writer at the turn of the last century. In his book, The Soul of an Indian, he describes the spirituality of Dakota pregnancy and childbirth. It was believed that the mother transmitted her attitude and secret meditations to the baby during gestation – She would thus take care with her meditations, and isolate herself in nature for prayer.

When the time came, she would deliver the child alone, and listen for nature to speak these words: It is love! The fulfilling of life! Then finally, after birth, she would return to camp holding her mysterious and holy bundle tightly at her breast – for though fully delivered, the baby was separated from his mother by only the thinnest of threads …

The two – mother and baby – remained very much a part of each other. Which all makes me wonder about Rebecca, and her failure, if you will, as a parent. She felt connected to only one of her sons, Jacob. She favored him in an unhealthy way, over against her other son, Esau. Such favoritism actually hurts the favored child, casting self-doubt across his soul.

Rebecca’s projection of who Jacob ought to be was manipulative and hurtful to him. Jacob grabbed at others’ heels, not just at birth, and not just Esau’s – but throughout his life. Striving, constantly striving, yes, Jacob cheated Esau out of both birthright and blessing – and he tricked his father-in-law for gain. Jacob even wrestled with God, pinned God down, and demanded of God a blessing. And don’t you know, God wanted to bless him anyway – minus the manipulation. But Jacob became a bitter combination of unhappy and wily. So much so that at the end of his life, he reflected, few and hard have been the years of my life.

Esau seems far more at ease with himself. Earthy Esau wanted nothing more than to spend time outdoors. He was a classic underachiever who let his brother best him. Yet somehow, his life seems far more authentic than Jacob’s. None of this is to say Esau was perfect. I mean -- at one point, Esau wanted to kill Jacob for Jacob’s shenanigans, but Esau was also the first to forgive, welcoming his brother home with hugs and tears. You have to wonder, why did God choose Jacob to run the line of Abraham’s promise?

**Do you remember Johnny Appleseed? He really existed and he really did plant apple seeds and saplings across the American frontier. Michael Pollan writes about Johnny Appleseed in his book, Botany of Desire, inviting the question, who used whom? Think about it – did Johnny Appleseed use the apple to help feed the frontier? Or did the apple use Johnny Appleseed to extend its habitat across the continent? Johnny Appleseed and the apple became inter-dependent.

Now apply that concept – of mutual interdependence - to Parable of the Sower. Who is using whom? The sower using the seed? The seed the soil? Obviously, the parable speaks to the condition of the human heart - but what if the soil conditions describe not different hearts, but one     heart? Your heart, my heart, equal parts good soil, rocky and trodden soil. But the parable also speaks about God. God who is sloppy-generous with seeds of grace, guaranteeing that grace will be sure to grow - somewhere. But – and here is the question – does the soil need the seed, or does the seed need the soil? For what is grace if it cannot find purchase in the human heart? And what is the human heart without grace?

*I recently overheard someone observe observe that I don’t dress professionally. I confess, I don’t. I like to wear blue jeans with my collar, when I wear my collar at all. I’m not a good priest in that regard – Oh, the scandal of it all. Now –this scandal about my clothing has got me thinking about clothes – Why do we dress the way we do? Why do you wear madras shorts, or a sear sucker suit?

I can think of two reasons: One might be: The clothes we wear is the projection of others –  such as – if I were to wear my collar because that is what you expect of me. Similar projections might be – dress for success – or wear what is conventional – like the sear-sucker suit in the South, which you don’t find often elsewhere. Another reason people pick the clothes they do – is that they want to express themselves – sometimes to make a statement – and sometimes more naturally, as a reflection of their souls. These people are dressing to become more authentic.

I wonder -- if more people dressed as their souls dictate, what might we see? The call of faith – and the parable of the sower – and the lessons of Esau and Jacob – are calls to live authentic lives, from the inside out. To dress for interior success, not external success. Esau lived from the inside out. His arms were hairy because his soul was musky. He was who he was, not who others expected him to be. Jacob, on the other hand, seems to have lived the projections of his mother. Her dream proved to be too much, so he ran away.

The question of the parable is not which type of soil does your heart happen to be– like I said, all our hearts are the sum of all the soils – rather, the question of the parable is this: why do you wait so long in order for the grace of God to find purchase in the fertile soil of your heart? You can live an authentic life. Now. By the grace of God. Be true, as in – To thine own self be true.

And for the mothers who still feels her child at her heart – and the fathers, too, your job is not to make your child a reflection of yourself – but to give him or her the grace to become authentic.

The question for all of us is the same, and that is this: What clothes will you wear?