Going to the Ball

As I emulate Cinderella and head off to this year's ball, I will leave a post for the sharing in my absence. First, let me say that I am not the ball type. I would rather be hiking mountains than sipping tea. But, I do not always get to choose. As one of the more visible leaders of our organization (combination of high post and big mouth), I cannot ditch the annual ball, much as I would like to.

Last year I wrote a post that garnered a fair amount of comments and discussion about my dilemma in what to wear. (I had actually been able to avoid earlier balls for acceptable reasons, but I had no acceptable reason last year, and so I appeared upon demand.) I could not bring myself to spend hundreds (or dozens) of dollars on the required attire: tuxedo or gown. There was so much more I could do of value with that kind of money, and there was also that Franciscan vow of poverty. So, I decided to wear a dress from Jordan that I had purchased there for $5 and that would look dressy in the USA although I had some serious doubts when I arrived and started to mix in among the tuxedos and ball gowns. (You can read the post here: VIP or VOP or Both? It includes a larger discussion of the decision-making process and results).

The most evident result was the reputation I gained by wearing ethnic dress. Everyone who did not attend the ball heard about it. This year, a few weeks ago, several people who had been to their home countries in the last few months brought me local dresses, asking me to wear them in honor of their culture. (I ensured that they had bought them for $25 or less, the ethical limit our organization places on gifts from employees to supervisors.) I understood the intent. They were not bribes; they just wanted to feel that their senior supervisor respected and even liked their cultures. Of course, I do. I have been to most of their countries and speak most of their languages. Wherever I am, I try to blend and often succeed. I felt honored by the requests. The situation, however, contains its own dilemma: which of the six ethnic dresses and four ethnic shawls should I wear?

Actually, I have decided on none of them. I will wear that $5 Jordanian dress again. Then, I will find other occasions to honor all those who have requested it through the gift of their ethnic attire.

Interestingly, I may have started something. This year's ball announcement again listed tuxedos and gowns as acceptable attire but added "or culturally appropriate attire." Never think that one person cannot create change!

[Note: Image above drawn by Tom Dubois -- click here to see more of his beautiful art work, which is for sale.]

V. I. P. or V.O.P or Both?

How does a VIP (Very Important Person) take a VOP (Vow of Poverty)? This troubling non-equation plagues me on some rare occasions. Take Saturday night, for example. Our organization was having a formal ball. And "ball" was the appropriate title for that event, the required attire being tuxedos for men and gowns for women. Now, being a VIP in our organization (by position, not necessarily by self-view) meant that I could not avoid attending the ball, and indeed my VIP-ness evidenced itself several times throughout the evening by what I was called upon to do and where I was required to sit. That is the work side of me.

The spiritual side of me is quite different. Usually that different spiritual side, with God's help and guidance, splashes out around me at work. I am a secular Franciscan (well, almost -- I have not yet professed but am entering my third year of candidacy), and as such I tend to follow St. Francis's model of giving away what I have and making do with very little. After all, I don't really need much now that the kids are grown. I do not feel compelled to live this way; I feel impelled to do so. It brings me great happiness to use my fairly decent salary (albeit less than it might be if I were not living in the "Land of Splat!") to help those who have no salary at all, to pay off God's credit card, and to contribute to divine projects such as rebuilding the St. Francis Retreat. Splurging on a fancy ball gown that I would wear only once, then, did not fit with my truly Franciscan lifestyle that, alas, at times conflicts with my truly secular life. I did not want to buy a gown; I wanted the gown money to help my kids with their medical bills, the orphans of Kaluga or Liberia with finding care and perhaps even homes, the children of Palomar with getting a school, the young mother in need of a home, the foreign handicapped child in need of an American doctor, and the strangers passing through my life in need of food. I find far more pleasure in helping them than in looking at a pretty dress. But this was a ball! And it was for my office where I was supposed to be some kind of role model!

I did have an alternative -- or so I thought. Since our foreign nationals were allowed, indeed encouraged, to wear their national dress, I figured that perhaps the Arabs would allow me to claim their ethnicity for a night since I had lived in Jordan for more than two years as a resident (equivalent to a green card holder in the USA). After all, on more than one occasion I had gotten away with wearing a pretty Arabic dress for a dress-up event. So, I donned a Jordanian dishdasha hashemiya (the kind of dress in the picture above) and, like Cinderella, left for the ball.

Yes, like Cinderella. Except for one thing -- no ball gown! The closer I approached the ball on my 45-minute drive there, the more concerned I became that I would be sitting at or near the head table where everyone would have on their fancy tuxes and gorgeous gowns, and there I would be in a pretty but everyday dress that I had picked up for $7.50 (yes, the period is in the right place) on the streets of Aqaba from a shopkeeper whose wife had probably done the hand embroidery. I started to squirm, well, at least, emotionally. What would people think? If I were sitting with the rank-and-file, it would be one thing, but at the head table in a Arabic dress, not a gown, and, in fact, in a dress that even the poorest of people in the Middle East could afford and would typically wear? What was I thinking? I could have afforded to buy a beautiful gown to show off for my employees and superiors. How dumb to have put my last dollar for this month in the church collection plate for this week's cause! If people who worked for me deserved to look pretty, so did I!

I was still squirming when I reached the ballroom. I should not have been. All my Arab national employees flocked to me, pleased as punch that I would dress as one of them. They wanted my picture taken with them. They introduced me to friends who had come with them. The other nationalities suggested that next time it was their turn to be so honored, that I should don their native attire. (I think I will -- I have some dresses from Russia, Uzbekistan, Brazil, and Turkmenistan in my closet, all of them gifts from friends and colleagues with whom I worked in those countries.) Needless to say, I enjoyed my gownless ball experience very much.

Driving home, I realized that my thoughts during the earlier drive to the ball had dramatically illustrated some Biblical precepts, like the man who asked Jesus what it would take to get to Heaven and to whom Jesus responded that he should give everything away and follow him (whether taken literally or figuratively, I was on the wrong side of that equation on my way to the ball). And how about that camel that could make it through an eye of a needle easier than a rich man can make it to Heaven? Well, thank God, I am not rich! But I was acting like it on the way in. Really, who cares what others think about what I am wearing physically? Is it not more important what I am wearing spiritually? Is not the armor of God far preferable to a pretty ball gown? I may have questioned that on the way to the ball but certainly not on the way from the ball.

God taught me a lesson that night about who is important, who is really a VIP. No VIP of God's was at the ball that night (at least, none that I was aware of, there being much of which none of us are aware). He also taught me a lesson about what is important. Certainly, not a gown.

God gives me everything I need. If I had needed a ball gown, He would have given me one. Instead, He showed me that my simple Jordanian dress was sufficient, just as His grace is sufficient. So, any dollars I have, extra or not, belong to God. Deep down, I think I knew that on the way to the ball, too. Just sometimes, God has to reach down and clunk me on the head again so that I remember just what kind of role model I am really supposed to be.