One consequence of my decision to wear a clerical collar while on duty in the coffee shop is far more frequent comments on my supposed youthfulness. Apparently a woman of 34 is supposed to be flattered when she is taken for an 18-year-old, and part of me does find it quite funny. But one of the advantages of being a 34-year-old woman is supposed to be that you are taken seriously! It has become apparent to me that many of our older customers assume I am a student earning some extra cash by waitressing... that is, until they see me in a dog collar, which confuses them utterly.
One of my work colleagues asked me, I think as a joke, "why do you want to be taken seriously?". I found it a very interesting question. I recently attended a conference where one of the keynote speakers was a middle aged man with real gravitas. He had a voice like a veteran newsreader or the narrator of a Dickens classic complete with smoking jacket and leather armchair. He had the kind of weighty presence which made you naturally assume he knew what he was talking about. He was someone you would automatically take seriously. Clearly I do not have that effect on the general public!
A moment's reflection on the gospels, however, reminds me that Jesus was hardly the kind of messiah his people were expecting. A man of humble origins (his human origins, anyway) who spent much of his time with people who were not respectable; who, rather than winning any military campaigns against the hated Romans, instead allowed himself to be captured, tortured and killed, and who in defeat and death won the ultimate victory. If I serve a lord like that, I need not be worried how people perceive me. In fact, I should be glad not to be taken seriously!
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