I DON'T WEAR A SUIT AND TIE TO CHURCH ANY MORE

This is not church, but it is comfy!

Now, ain't that something?  The first thing that happened is that 35 or more years ago I moved to California.  That was an awakening about the meaning of dress.  of course, even in California things were a lot more formal than they are now, but a lot less formal than they were in Massachusetts.  Slowly but surely I got a little more detached from the formal duds.  Then I suddenly decided that at my age I didn't have to impress anybody any more and besides, God, who knew me in my mother's womb, wasn't impressed to begin with.  So I started to relax my stringent personal rules and did away with the necktie thing.  Oh, I'm not completely scraggly and gutter snipy (That's not a word.  It comes from "snipe", like in "gutter snipe".  My spell check is going nuts.)  I still don a suit coat for some special occasions, mostly for church stuff if I have to appear in front of the whole congregation.  Now, here's the truth.  I'm actually typing with one hand because I have my right hand in my heart to show you that I'm not lying.  Oh, and by the way, I know what it means on the Internet to "be typing with one hand."  So to all of you who snickered, I caught you.  Now, back to my secret.
My father was a stickler for formal dress.  I mean, a stickler.  Me?  I hated it.  I wanted to be in my dungarees all the time.  BTW (That's Internet for By The Way), there are no "dungarees" in California.  There are only "Levis" or "Jeans."  So, all my life I fought this whole "to live with people, you gotta be people" axiom all the way.  I didn't help myself when I got to be clergy.  Talk about dress code.  You could get excommunicated in Rome if you were caught out of cassock and collar.  It was quite a relief when I went to the Philippines.  We actually had a work clothes wardrobe.  It was rather comfortable and the bishop never scolded us for it.  We had a reputation for being the Coca-Cola priests because our "uniform" was approximately the same color as that of the Coca-Cola delivery truck drivers.
So anyway, now I am comfortable.  No one tells me what to wear anymore...(Ssshh, don't tell her I said that.)  I'm sure  that God doesn't mind.  It is a little bit of heaven on earth for me.  I thought of this because it is the 50th (actually 51st year) of EFR Dion's birth into the Eternal Kingdom.  I figure he is safely and snuggly under the wings of the Creator, so I can get away with dressing the way I want.  I wonder if that will get me more purgatory time?