Walking the path

(3-minute read)

“How do I look?”

My father looked up from his newspaper to see my mother dressed in pants (trousers if you live in the UK). It was the late 1950s and the first time I saw my mother in a pair of pants; she always wore a dress.

My father smiled and said, “You look nice.” My mother smiled and walked away. I followed her to the kitchen, and when I walked in, she turned around and said, “I like these slacks. Do I look OK in them?”

I didn’t know what the word slacks meant, but I assumed it was a type of pants. I parroted my father and said, “You look nice.” The look on her face made me think that wasn’t the answer she had hoped for.

Later that day, I saw my mother looking into a full-length mirror with a questioning look on her face and then a smile just before she turned away to return to what she was doing. My mother didn’t spend much time in front of a mirror, but I saw her do the same thing three times.

Late that afternoon, I entered the kitchen where my mother was preparing supper. “I like the slacks, mama. I think you look pretty.” She stopped what she was doing, came over, put her arms around me, and said, “I love you.” I think that was the answer she was looking for earlier. I don’t remember the subject of her slacks ever coming up again. It was probably another two years before she wore them anywhere other than home.

In 1970, we had only been going to church for less than a year, and someone who worked with my wife, Jo, invited us to visit their church. She told Jo that she would have to wear a dress to attend their church; otherwise, someone would turn her away at the door. We had never heard of a church that would turn people away because of how they were dressed. We decided to go, and Jo dressed accordingly.

We were attending a Thursday night prayer meeting at a pastor’s home who was also a professor at a local Bible college. I asked him about that church’s dress code for women. He said, “Many churches have things which they consider sins of major importance. They usually only have two or three, changing about every 10 years. It’s rare now to find a church with a dress requirement. That was a thing back in the late 1940s. It was started by a group of politicians. At the time, the people in power were trying to get more women into the workforce, and dresses were inappropriate for some jobs. The other political party wanted to make them look evil. People vote against evil far more readily than they vote for good. They said women wearing pants destroyed marriage, the home, and motherhood. After the election, politicians stopped talking about it, and it slowly disappeared from most churches. The common thing today, in 1970, is divorce. You can rob a bank, repent, then stand at the pulpit and tell all about it; they might make you a Deacon. But, if you get a divorce, you might just as well have gotten a highly contagious form of leprosy. They don’t want you. This one is slowly fading but will be replaced by something else. The problem is not loving people enough to accept them where they are in their walk with the Lord. As we talk about this church, the problem for you and me is that we don’t want to become an accuser, someone who points out another person’s sins. That church is trying to do the right thing even if we think they have taken a wrong turn. Being an accuser is working for the wrong spiritual team; that is what the devil does. Whether it’s an individual or a church doing its thing, we need to help people have a relationship with the Lord, and once they do, let God deal with them.”

The thing about divorce has gone away in most churches but, sure enough, has been replaced by other things. Since that conversation, I’ve caught myself falling into the role of the accuser so many times. It seems like I too often find some “good” reason to point out a person’s or an organization’s sins. The pastor I went to for advice was right; I need to learn to love people as they are.