August 1st, 2022
Today’s devotion comes to us via HomeTouch.
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People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
An eighth-grade teacher in New Jersey wore the same dress for 100 consecutive days to call attention to the need for sustainable fashion.
Meet Julia Mooney, an art teacher at William Allen Middle School in Moorestown, New Jersey. At the beginning of the 2018 school year, she put on a simple gray button-down dress and then wore it every school day for 100 days straight.
Can you imagine that? I can. Let’s say you’re retired, and you don’t have a job to go to every day. And let’s say, you see very few people these days, or that you live in a single room in an assisted-living home. You don’t need to wear something different every day.
But if you are a teacher like Mooney, wearing the same dress for days on end doesn’t make sense. Why would she do this?
It wasn’t about being weird. For Mooney, it was important to teach her students about the growing “culture of excess” that has filled American closets to overflowing with cheap clothing that isn’t ethically sourced or manufactured and that, most of the time, eventually winds up in a landfill.
Instead, Julia advocates for what she calls “sustainable fashion”: wearing the same clothes more often, and making sure they’re recycled when they are replaced or no longer needed.
The apostle Paul was an advocate for sustainable fashion, too. He talks about clothing in Colossians 3:1-11. He argues that we shouldn’t dress in tones of “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language” (v. 8). Instead, we should be “clothed … with the new self” (v. 10), by which he meant such virtues as love, joy, gentleness, peace, meekness and patience.
So, what are you going to wear today?
- Timothy Merrill
Prayer
O God, I know that there is nothing more attractive than to appear before others wearing the beautiful clothes of righteousness. Help me choose the right “wardrobe” for today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
_________________________
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
An eighth-grade teacher in New Jersey wore the same dress for 100 consecutive days to call attention to the need for sustainable fashion.
Meet Julia Mooney, an art teacher at William Allen Middle School in Moorestown, New Jersey. At the beginning of the 2018 school year, she put on a simple gray button-down dress and then wore it every school day for 100 days straight.
Can you imagine that? I can. Let’s say you’re retired, and you don’t have a job to go to every day. And let’s say, you see very few people these days, or that you live in a single room in an assisted-living home. You don’t need to wear something different every day.
But if you are a teacher like Mooney, wearing the same dress for days on end doesn’t make sense. Why would she do this?
It wasn’t about being weird. For Mooney, it was important to teach her students about the growing “culture of excess” that has filled American closets to overflowing with cheap clothing that isn’t ethically sourced or manufactured and that, most of the time, eventually winds up in a landfill.
Instead, Julia advocates for what she calls “sustainable fashion”: wearing the same clothes more often, and making sure they’re recycled when they are replaced or no longer needed.
The apostle Paul was an advocate for sustainable fashion, too. He talks about clothing in Colossians 3:1-11. He argues that we shouldn’t dress in tones of “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language” (v. 8). Instead, we should be “clothed … with the new self” (v. 10), by which he meant such virtues as love, joy, gentleness, peace, meekness and patience.
So, what are you going to wear today?
- Timothy Merrill
Prayer
O God, I know that there is nothing more attractive than to appear before others wearing the beautiful clothes of righteousness. Help me choose the right “wardrobe” for today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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