Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe
yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. (Colossians 3:12)
Clothes
are multipurpose pieces of material. One job clothes have is to protect the
body from the weather, the sun, critters that might attack, weapons, and from
unwanted attention that might be given to parts we prefer weren’t the center of
everyone’s attention. Another purpose is to draw attention to ourselves in
general or to parts that we do want to be the enter of everyone’s attention. (And
if those clothes are successful in directing that attention, it should hardly
be considered the fault of the person whose attention has been directed.) The
key thing about clothes is that they are not naturally a part of us. They are
foreign material that we apply to ourselves to make our lives simpler, safer,
and less embarrassing, and sometimes even more attractive, more attention-grabbing.
Paul writes that we should be clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. That at least suggests that they are foreign to us. Some people claim we developed them as an evolutionary adaptation to ensure the survival of the species, but I can tell you without a doubt that I’m not kind because I was the human race to survive. I don’t think I know anyone who is humble so that another generation can be born. In fact, a million times a year in the United States, just the opposite is true, a member of the next generation is killed so that someone in this generation isn’t humbled or inconvenienced.
Some people say that we learn to wear these things by experience. If we’re kind, others are kind back. There is some truth to this idea, I think, but there is also an error. When we are “kind” in order to receive kindness, we aren’t really being kind. What we’ve put on is someone’s knock off brand, not the designer original. Even when we’re humble because we want to be, the attire doesn’t fit right. When we’re compassionate in a way that makes us feel good but doesn’t actually help the recipient, we’re wearing our pants on our heads, our shirts on our feet and socks dangling on each ear. Experience may teach us how to wear these things, but only if it’s the right experience. If we don’t put them on, what’s left for others to see really isn’t all that attractive. It needs to be dressed up a bit to be presentable in public – constrained, controlled, contained, corrected, contoured….
Paul writes that we should be clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. That at least suggests that they are foreign to us. Some people claim we developed them as an evolutionary adaptation to ensure the survival of the species, but I can tell you without a doubt that I’m not kind because I was the human race to survive. I don’t think I know anyone who is humble so that another generation can be born. In fact, a million times a year in the United States, just the opposite is true, a member of the next generation is killed so that someone in this generation isn’t humbled or inconvenienced.
Some people say that we learn to wear these things by experience. If we’re kind, others are kind back. There is some truth to this idea, I think, but there is also an error. When we are “kind” in order to receive kindness, we aren’t really being kind. What we’ve put on is someone’s knock off brand, not the designer original. Even when we’re humble because we want to be, the attire doesn’t fit right. When we’re compassionate in a way that makes us feel good but doesn’t actually help the recipient, we’re wearing our pants on our heads, our shirts on our feet and socks dangling on each ear. Experience may teach us how to wear these things, but only if it’s the right experience. If we don’t put them on, what’s left for others to see really isn’t all that attractive. It needs to be dressed up a bit to be presentable in public – constrained, controlled, contained, corrected, contoured….
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