Other People’s Opinions

An early “boomer,” I know that whites must needs be put away today.

. . . [E]ven though the rule was originally enforced by only a few hundred women, over the decades it trickled down to everyone else. By the 1950s, women’s magazines made it clear to middle class America: white clothing came out on Memorial Day and went away on Labor Day. (Why you CAN’T wear white after Labor Day)

No kidding – nobody I knew in Maryland ever wore white after the first Monday in September. Even as a hippie, I put away the white. But in Texas, where weather is hot, hot, hot sometimes until mid October, that rule has some flexibility in it.

But I can’t shake the idea that wearing a white watch, shoes or slacks, or using a white bag is a faux pas.  Me, who managed to ditch much bigger social conventions so that I might be me. Choosing to be hide bounded to silly “rules,” while ignoring God’s Law isn’t an impulse that disappeared when I became a Christian. Other people’s opinions are powerful and personal influencers.

I [still] want to be liked.

In these times when folks are quick to spot my hypocrisy, I need a continuing education class on conduct and conscience.  A blogger* collected several descriptions of how Solomon saw fools, and said as one reads the verses, they should ask: 

• In what ways am I like the fool?

• How can I learn not to be a fool but instead to be wise? *What is a Fool? 
  
  

The first three descriptions from Proverbs 1 follow and remind me I never to old to learn better ways to live  --

·      1:7
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

·      1:22
“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

·      1:32
For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them.

Be open-minded, but not so open-minded that your brains fall out. 

~Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

Another rumination on the “End” of Summer