OK, far be it for me to judge, and especially about such topics as church or that which is deemed appropriate as it relates to the faithful, but I could not let this go without posing the question: what is appropriate attire for church? I’m sitting in a cafe’ on the corner of 11th & K Streets in Downtown Sacramento on a Sunday morning working on a paper for school. I’m in full view of the magnificent Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament when the clock in the tower strikes noon and out come the masses form the earlier Sunday Mass. Now, again, being one who first of all, does not attend church regularly, and secondly one who will wear jeans to work on occasion when the capacity of my laundry hamper has reached its limit and has gone unnoticed, or more likely ignored, I am hardly the one to set a precedence for attire appropriate etiquette. However, as the grand doors to the Cathedral opened, out stepped the faithful, smiling with rejuvenated newfound faith that the world in which they live is still a good and God-fearing place to raise their families. Among the flock are several young women, mid to late teens, or perhaps twenties (hard to tell by the way they were dressed) carefully descending the nine granite steps to the courtyard below, balanced precariously high upon six-inch stiletto’s and struggling to bend joints confined within excruciatingly tight-fitting jeans. Another young woman, similar in assumption of age group as the previously observed, traversed the Cathedral steps effortlessly in her, what appeared to be seven-inch platform shoes, straps crisscrossing up her calves, that effectively accented her wonderfully voluminous dress that barely came to the top of her knee.
The jeans wearing youngsters found their prospective familial units and made their way to whatever the next stop on their fashion tour was under the guise of dressing up for church, disappearing into the warm noontime sun of this early fall day. The billowing dress adorned young woman, crossed the light rail tracks and walked in my direction. Holding my gaze as she approached, she cast a warm smile as she passed the window behind which I was perched whaling away on my laptop. I returned the gesture, of course. It was only appropriate…