Could you live your everyday life in just six pieces of clothing? It is the question behind a website called “Six Items or Less.”
In the trans-Atlantic experiment, people around the world volunteered to choose six items of clothing and wear only those six things for a month, at work and at home. That’s it. People wrote about their six choices, how they used them and how other people reacted to them wearing the same clothes all month.
The astonishing part of this experiment: Virtually no one noticed. People from around the world who participated in the experiment in June, wrote blog updates during the month, reflecting on their experiences. They wrote that no one realized they were wearing only six items of clothing over and over again. Wives and husbands both wrote that they didn’t mention the experiment to spouses and that not even the spouses noticed it. One woman said her mother, who sees her daily, didn’t notice. Her mother shrugged and said she wouldn’t know what any of her children wore yesterday.
It makes me wonder about the image we try to project to the world at large and those around us and how little it really means. And it makes me consider my own life before God. Do I spend a lot of time putting on a costume before I come to God? Do I want to impress God somehow?
Do I even put off coming before God until I can fix myself up? I’ll really get into my relationship with God when work isn’t so busy. When my life is less hectic or when my kids are more settled in their lives. When I am holier. As soon as I stop being so impatient with other people. When I can be perfect. . .
It’s a lesson I have to learn over and over again–God is just waiting for and loving me, and incredibly joyful when I finally put aside the six things I think I need to do or be and just open my heart to him.