Style Watching

Today I spent time sitting and waiting in two doctors' offices and I had a chance to do one of my favorite things - people watching.  But today as I watched I couldn't help but notice the wide variety of clothing styles of the waiting patients.  There were some dressed in coats and ties (probably coming from work), more dressed informally, some in shorts (even with a frost warning declared), some in sweats, and even one farmer whose clothing looked like he just came from the fields.  We now see the same variety in church.  Now I admit, I don't wear ties to church anymore - 39 years of wearing them six days a week was enough.  But I still dress in my very best, informal clothing - I personally would feel uncomfortable coming to worship in anything less than that.  But not all folks feel as I do and they even come in gym shorts, short shorts, very short dresses, low necklines, sweat shirts, etc.  But at least they come and that is what church is all about. I think Jesus would accept them.  It appears that today anything is acceptable when it comes to dress.  Last week we attended a wedding where the same variety was evident.  At breakfast, in our motel, we met a man who was dressed in shorts with a t-shirt celebrating the NY firemen.  To me it looked appropriate for somebody who had just gotten out of bed to eat breakfast.   But seven hours later we were surprised when he came to the wedding dressed the very same way.  There were others dressed informally.  I wore a suit - and a tie!  Then there were the numerous "fashionable" young women who came in their formal cocktail dresses - very short skirts with extremely low necklines.  In fact several of the women there were joking that they were watching these women expecting that when they leaned over, "something" surely would pop out.   I admit, I was too embarrassed to look their way since I would have seen much more than I needed to see.  But today if you watch people, you will see a wide variety of dressing styles - as I said, anything goes.  A few days ago I read the following.  "In 2004 researchers at Odeon Cinemas determined that celebrities making appearances at awards shows and movie premieres expose an average of 59 percent of their skin. That's up from 39 percent in 1994. After scanning thousands of celebrity photographs and videos, they also determined that the least skin-flaunting decade was the 1970s, when stars showed off just seven percent. If the trend continues at this rate, the researchers say, movie stars will be completely naked by 2030." Unfortunately, based on our experiences at the wedding, I think this might happen much sooner than 2030, and it might not just be the movie stars!