Comments on: Quakers consider “plain dress” in Second Life

By: Lois Diann Herzog

Lois Diann Herzog — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 01:32:06 +0000

Greetings f/Friend,
I have been living out my convictions in plain dress for four years. For me it is a leading, tho I resisted and struggled with it for two years before submitting. So many miracles and blessings have come out of my leap of faith. It has affected my entire life (of course!). If you are familiar with Quaker practice, you know about listening to that still, small voice. That voice finally convinced me with this message: “Would you have the lighthouse look like the rocks?” Since coming out plain, many, many ships tossed on the stormy seas have found shelter with me. I am ridiculously easy to spot anywhere I go. People come to me for prayer, sharing sorrows, asking for help, or to just safely be human and vulnerable, even my fellow Friends. Plain dress for me is part of a call to ministry. I think it must first be an inner movement of the Spirit that then affects an outward change. There are no hard and fast guidelines or rules about the articles of clothing. It has never been about that. If you feel that this is the direction God is leading you in, ask for a clearness committee and try it out. Blessings,LD.

By: Hans

Hans — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:38:27 +0000

Do I as a Friend dress for myself, or for others? Is “plain dress” something that I alone benefit from (however I define it) or can it be used as a witness and “teaching tool” to benefit others as well ? Is “blending in” visibly with “the world” , albeit plainly, the only logical outcome of embracing a faith which in so many ways goes against the grain of the world?

Plain dress with a definite “Quaker” aspect to it is, I think, a good thing. It can unite us as a group, remind us of our path, free us from silly fashion related choices, and make us distinct in the world. We are already distinct from the “mainstream” in many ways. Being set apart by dress seems (to me) to go hand and hand with this. I have never understood why some Friends have no problem in setting them selves apart from “society” in a spiritual, inner manner, but don’t want to do the same thing in a visible one.

I am no less an individual because I wear Quaker garb, and my mode of dress allows me in some ways to transcend self-orientedness and identify with the group that I am a part of. Why should not people, when seeing me on the street, think or say, “There goes a Friend.”?