While Standing in Line at a Visitation

I know pretty much nothing about women’s fashions and clothing trends.  Let me start there.

(I barely know anything about guys’ clothes.  Somebody taught somewhere along the way that “solid colors and basic stuff” usually works.  Seems to be true.  Plus, I can understand and remember that.)

That said, we pastors go to way more Weddings and Funerals than other people.  Call in an Occupational Hazard if you want; it’s just how it is.

At some point in the last while, I saw a dress that made a great theological statement while waiting in line at a Visitation  It was blocks of different kinds of gray and black.  With one white stripe running the length of the dress.

Reminded me of Zip Paintings by Barnett Newman.  He used masking tape on his canvases.  He painted directly over the tape.  When the painting was finished he would then remove the tape, and the sound it made coming off the canvas was “zip.”  Hence the name.  Not kidding.

Visitations, Funerals and Memorial Services can be sad times, and rightly so.  If we let the somber shades represent that, the unexpected thin line cutting through takes on great significance.  “We grieve,” wrote St. Paul, “but not as those without hope.” (1st Thessalonians 4:13)  The stripe that touched and cut through the solid blocks can represent that hope.

What colors will you and I see today, and what can they tell us?