Wear white after Labour Day? Me? [A reprise]

I grew up in the 40’s and 50’s, in a culture that KNEW that you didn’t wear white before the 24th of May weekend or after Labour Day! Why this was so was never explained, nor did I ever question why. To this day, I still find it impossible to wear white outside those boundaries. Yes, I have tried! Only to end up taking the offending garment off because it made me feel so uncomfortable. Even when visiting the southern hemisphere during ‘their’ summer, I still could not bring myself to ‘wear white’ because although the weather was right, the names of the months weren’t. And YES, I realize this makes no sense, that neither the season, nor the temperature, matters!

If this tradition, that is so obviously flawed, but really about something of little importance in today’s world, is so difficult for me to jettison, then why should I be surprised at how difficult it is to change outdated religious doctrines and creeds. These creeds and doctrines, many of which are 1500 years old, came from a time with a world-view very different from our own. They are how the church leaders of that time, tried to capture their understanding of God with the knowledge of the world that was available to them at that time. Even with the knowledge we have in the 21st century, people still say things like “The world might be round now, but it was flat back then” [true story!]. Religious beliefs go to the core of our being, and so, YES, they will be the hardest to change … even harder than being comfortable wearing white after Labour Day! [First published on September 9th 2013......]

Four years and over 200 blog postings later, this still holds true for me. Indeed I think it always will be there in my psyche no matter how strange or silly that may seem. And this has given me a new appreciation as to how difficult it is to give up a long-held religious belief, even when you KNOW it [a] has been proven false [b] was mistranslated according to the most ancient source available or [c] is only one of a number of understandings over the last 3000 years. It helps me to understand why these beliefs resurface in me from time to time. As B.J. Neblett says below, we are all the sum total of whatever went before in our lives.

“We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.” B.J. Neblett [American author]

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