WHAT I WEAR!!! INTENTIONAL T-SHIRTS AND HUMILITY & FORGIVENESS

(My Thought For The Day on Good Morning Ulster on March 20, 2025...)

 

Sartorial and Steve Stockman don’t really go together. My late father was maybe the neat and tidiest human I ever met but his son… Scruff has been a nick name at various times. 

I was at a Conference last week and the dress was to be smart casual but someone said, “Never worry sure Steve’s coming”. Jeans and a rock band t-shirt is my every day attire. 

But don’t think it is careless. Oh no I am careful to look as careless as I can and many of my t-shirts are chosen for the day that’s in it. Going to the A Complete Unknown the Dylan film. Will it’s a Dylan shirt… St. Patrick’s Day it was my green Rory Gallagher. Ever Intentional.

What we wear scruffy or tidy can have an impact.

At that Conference I was at, Rev Robert Bell shared about intentional clothes. He was speaking from St.Paul’s letter to the Colossians where Paul tells the church to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another… Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

I was struck by it because it had been almost the same thought that Pope Francis (who we keep in our prayers) shared with us when we met him in his private library a couple of year’s back. He said, “Read the Gospels until you wear the Jesus you are reading about”.

Now some might dismiss this as nice and inane. My teachers always hated us using the word nice. Yet, I have come to see these words as brave and revolutionary. 

To be humble in a society where every seems to need to be the winner. Brave! Compassion on someone can get you social media abuse and forgiving others that others don’t think you should forgive. Think of the courage of Gordon Wilson. 

I’d love to live in a city or neighbourhood or home where people wore intentionally compassion, kindness, humility. Imagine that kinda world. 

So, for the next few weeks in Lent, and then on after, I am going to wear those Jesus values with the same intention as I wear my jeans and t-shirt. Every morning as I reach for that shirt, I’ll reach for who I might forgive and live in my community, wearing Jesus.