Moo-Moo

When Carol walked into the church office that day some twenty years ago, she had the misfortune of running into a very immature youth minister who had yet to learn that a man should never ask questions about a woman’s clothing, ever. We may have walked on the moon but in the entire history of the human race no way has yet been invented for a man to safely ask questions about what a woman is wearing or why.

Carol happened to be wearing a moo-moo that day, one of those tent dresses designed to cover everything without revealing anything of the form it’s covering. “I didn’t know you were pregnant,” I said to Carol, my mouth open just wide enough for my size 12 loafer to fit comfortably inside. “I’m not,” Carol said, rather plainly, staring right through me.

At this point, you’d think that I would know enough to shut up and look for a safe exit, both from the conversation and the room. Instead, like a snake disjoints its jaw in order to swallow a much larger animal whole, I opened my mouth even wider, enough for my other size 12 to fit comfortably inside, too. With both feet firmly in place, nestled next to my out-of-control tongue, I followed the first question with one just like it. “Then, why are you wearing a maternity dress?” I asked.

It’s a real witness to Carol’s maturity that all she said next was, “It’s not a maternity dress,” no expletives added for emphasis. It was a real witness to my immaturity that my judgment of her life’s condition was based solely on what I could see.

“The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7, NRSV). Very early on, most of us learn how to disguise what we’re thinking or feeling by changing our outward appearance, chameleon-like, depending on the crowd we’re with. Too bad that, just as early on, we don’t learn to see others as God sees us, from the inside out, not the other way around.