"Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives,when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewellery and fine clothes.Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands,like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear."
(1 Peter 3:1-6 NIV)
I used to be a Methodist minister. Just a few years ago, I would have been officiating at weddings every Saturday, preaching twice every Sunday, and spent the week leading housegroups, visiting the old and sick, preparing sermons and crafting liturgy, preparing and leading meetings, overseeing the management of church congregations and figuring out what to do about rotting buildings, sorting out fights between church members, listening to people in trouble or distress, sitting with the dying, preparing people for baptism - and now I don't.
I stepped aside from that for a number of reasons, and then took time out to wait on God asking, basically, 'What now?'
At first it was mainly a question of mending after a traumatic decade, but eventually the question of ministry returned. If I was not here to be a Methodist minister, what was I sent here to do and to be? The call to preach and teach the Gospel had by no means gone away, but continued as the spinal cord of my life.
Gradually I began to learn to listen and obey in a new way: walking blind. As the whisper of the Spirit spoke in my heart, I obeyed. The directions came for only one step at a time, so I took each step.
First came the direction to go back to Hastings to my family, for it would be within the context of family and working as a team with them that the next phase of ministry would form.
Next came the direction to buy this shabby and dilapidated old house that has needed so much doing in renovation even to be habitable. As we lived in it and worked on it, the vision grew in conviction that this would be a space of community, of healing and teaching and growing the vision of the Peaceable Kingdom, spreading the word. And even already, so it is proving to be.
Next the call to Plain dress, that I took up two years ago then chickened out of because it felt so embarassing and weird, returned. I didn't understand it, but heard the call 'Do it anyway'. So with much apprehension and violent collywobbles, I did.
Now I am beginning (I think) to catch on to what is happening. It's about morphic field resonance.
When I was teaching and leading, it was as though my words never really went anywhere, they were like water running out into sand. There was one area only where I saw profound and lasting impact in sharing what I believed, and that was with the people I actually lived with, who travelled with me and saw my beliefs in action, and grasped how they made sense. My children grew up strong in faith. My husband Bernard found a living relationship with Jesus and an understanding of the power of the Cross in the last months of his life.
What I have found is that if I tell people about Gospel simplicity and living the vision of the Peaceable Kingdom, or speak much about Jesus who is alive and has come to teach His people Himself, they are inclined to get annoyed and start to raise objections, telling me what's wrong with it and why it can't be done. If they travel along with me they still say those things, but after a while they start to catch on. If I don't lose my nerve or get lonely and bottle out, eventually the message jumps the gap and the cognitive connections begin to be made. Light dawns. A new Gospel activist is born.
This is the phenomenon that Rupert Sheldrake calls morphic resonance, a process by which living beings tune in and turn on to the same frequency, and get the vibe of what is going down in a particular behaviour pattern.
That's why Plain dress works as a form of preaching - with the proviso, that is, that the Plain dressing person is leading a Plain life, and is authentically building the Peaceable Kingdom, walking the way of Gospel Simplicity and authentically following in the path of personal holiness, determinedly disentangling and cleansing her/himself from the slime mould of Mammon spreading like a caul over human society.
As it happens, both St Peter and St Paul recommend the path of quietness - even silence - to women. I don't really understand this, but I am interested in it, especially as I tried preaching and teaching for about twenty-five years and my career as a preacher/teacher was not distinguished by success: not because I preached badly but because, though congregations (mostly) approved of what I said, my words still effected no changes.
Even in the short time since I gave into the still small voice and started to go the Plain way, I have seen changes. Without my having to say anything at all, the morphic field resonance thingy kicks in and, without any explanation being necessary, those around me start to get with the beat. I ask your pardon if this sounds conceited or arrogant; it's not meant to be, I'm just telling you what I've noticed to encourage you in your own endeavours.
This is how George Fox put it:
"Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone..."
That's morphic field resonance evangelism and teaching: and that, kindred, seems to me to be the way to go! The path of clear quietness, silence that speaks.
Here's that passage from 1 Peter again, this time in The Message:
"Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs. There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated by your life of holy beauty. What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition.
Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands. Sarah, for instance, taking care of Abraham, would address him as 'my dear husband.' You'll be true daughters of Sarah if you do the same, unanxious and unintimidated."
(1 Peter 3:1-6 The Message)