One of my greatest pleasures of ministry are the angularities that so many stories bring to me.

One of the regulars in our “Men’s Lunch” visited Iran about a year ago for a water conference. He’s a well traveled man and we mused a bit about current events and Iran. One of the things we discussed were coverings for Islamic women in Iran. He mentioned that the whole time in Iran he never saw a woman in a Burqa. When his group of international visitors visited holy sites like the tomb of Daniel   the women in the group had to don an appropriate covering and it was hospitably furnished for them at the site.

While he was telling me this story, I was also thinking about a women in our congregation who while recovering from a surgery contracted C. Diff in the nursing home. They put her in isolation which meant that visitors had to put on a gown and gloves for visitation in order to try to prevent the continued spread of the disease in the facility.

What are the powers of the world we live in?

Many of us in our culture would readily accept the necessity of a hospital gown to protect ourselves and our community from a bacterial infection. Even though the contagion is not visible with the naked eye we fear it and account for it. The notion that the wrath of God might be addressed by something like clothing, however, seems strange.

As a species we are amazingly programmable and capable of responding to so many different things in so many different ways.