In this Winter term, our Friday morning ministry seminar has focused on public theology in the Reformed tradition. We are reading chapters from Reformed Public Theology : A Global Vision for Life in the World (Matthew Kaemingk, 2021). This week we explored the theme of fashion, and had such a rich and meaningful conversation. Each person prepared a prayer on the theme, and the following lovely/thoughtful prayer is shared from student Julilee:
Dear God,
Everything is made beautiful in your hands.
You are the master tailor who sketches our lives, who threads us together, who cares for us lovingly.
You imagine and call into being mountain ranges that zipper the plains together, wildflowers and grasses stitched into the soil, lakes and rivers that shimmer as they reflect sun, and cloud, and faces that peek into them.
Your creation inspires us to make – to create.
We try to replicate your evening sky in our silks, the softness of grass in gentle cotton, the feeling of love in the softest cashmere. Onto your mighty canvas we layer more art, and we pray that you accept and delight in our desire to create as you first created.
We give you thanks for the artisans who transform leathers and textiles into beautiful and practical things that clothe the world.
We thank you for the way your people around the world take what you have given them and transform it into garb fitting each one of us.
We thank you for those things handed down generation to generation. The way the materials carry the energy and spirit of the past into the present.
And yet, all that glitters is not gold.
When we look to our over-stuffed closet, we confront the ways we have taken what is good and made it into something that is not.
Our consumerism supports industries that harm our neighbour and the environment. We place our confidence in what we wear, rather than in you.
We punish our bodies and curse the mirror when clothing is tight or unflattering.
We admire and covet the body that fits the trend.
The clothing, meant to comfort, to inspire, to celebrate our diversity becomes a prison, an expectation. It shifts from an act of creativity to oppression.
Forgive us. Fashion us into a people who would better follow the spirit of a Creator who makes and celebrates works of art that come in all shapes and sizes, all colours.
Your love for us is free. Your canvas is all around.
Let us add to it thoughtfully, lovingly, inspired by Your love and presence. AMEN.
