I just arrived at the hotel here I am staying at near Willow Creek Community Church. It is 10:00 PM and I have discovered a dilemma. I normally always speak at conferences wearing black leather shoes of some sort, usually my Doc Martins. I dress overall casual when speaking at conferences, but always wear black leather shoes, not sneakers. But as I travel, I usually wear my comfy low top Converse. My dilemma tonight is that it has turned out that in my packing, I forgot to pack my leather shoes. So all I have with me is my black lowtop Converse shoes.
My caring and dedicated beautiful wife Becky, saw when she got back from the airport that I forget them. She knew I would want them and while I was still flying, she had them shipped overnight to the hotel (which was half the cost of what the shoes cost). She didn't get the super-speed delivery, but one that should make it here sometime in the late morning.
I am a main session speaker here for the afternoon session, and as of now there are over 5,000 people attending. It is the Arts and Worship Conference and I greatly look forward not only to speaking, but attending the event as there are so many great things being discussed here. Nancy Beach who is the overall leader of this event, is someone I really respect and have grown to greatly admire in her creativity, her heart for artists and personal encouragement.
Tomorrow I will be speaking about how being in worship ministry and focusing on the weekend gathering and all the creativity is a wonderful, wonderful thing (and I do a lot of that personally in our church) - but at the same time, we cannot forget the danger of slowly being sucked into a Christian Bubble and sub-culture and forgetting that Jesus told us to be "in the world" as His body and church. It will be an interesting balance to try and cover, since this is a conference focusing on worship gatherings for the most part.
But I cannot actually concentrate on looking over my notes right now, I can only think of wearing the black Converse. Will my actual shoes make it here on time? Or will I walk out to speak wearing my lowtop black Converse?
The Ramones often wore lowtop black and also white Converse shoes. Yet in the airport in Chicago, and in the hotel as I was checking in, I have seen several men formally dressed wearing leather shoes but they have no socks. My instinctive tendency would be to tap them on the shoulder and softly and politely say "Excuse me, but you forgot to put your socks on" and they would be embarrassed and thank me for pointing that out and then quickly rush to get a pair of socks to put on. But as I saw several men who wore dress shoes without socks, I fast realized that it is intentional and part of fashion. It somehow seems unnatural seeing men's bare ankles and dress shoes. But fashion is subjective, so who am I to say what seems unnatural or not. Do men in Chicago frequently wear leather shoes and no socks? As I walk around tomorrow at the conference, will many men be wearing leather loafers but no socks? Is this only a nice weather thing, or do they not wear socks all year around with their dress shoes?
I shall see what happens and whether my shoes make it here by the time I speak.... or will it be the black Converse that I wear when I speak tomorrow. That is what is consuming my thinking right now.
*I sometimes feel guilty blogging about rather silly things like this, as there is so much happening in the world - but it is a relief to sometimes blog about trivial things like shoes.
