This letter originally appeared in the Benediction Farm newsletter on August 15, just prior to Wade Bradshaw’s ordination to the diaconate. Learn more about Benediction Farm here. Illustrations by Sean Rubin.

Friends,

I write this as much for me as for anyone else.

I expect to be ordained a Deacon on Saturday [August 15]. And this has been a long process: really long if I consider how I meant to be in the Anglican Church since returning from England in 2006. But it all began in earnest about two years ago. It has been a wonderful and grueling experience. Wonderful in how broadly the Church ministers to those involved. Grueling in that the Bishop wisely required me to meet with a ‘trauma-informed therapist’ and, rather by definition, that can’t be pleasant.

So, on Sunday night I went away for  one-day to pray and examine myself, and ask the Holy Spirit to examine me. Was I doing the right thing, for the right reasons, at the right time?

Then, on Tuesday, I wanted to try on the vestments that I would be wearing at the consecration. This is the experience that I want to reflect upon.

First, it was funny. Chryse had to help me put on the cassock, because I have no experience in putting on a dress.

And the surplice behaved like a parachute after landing in a windy pasture.

Now, how does one move around in such gear? This is important because in one part of the liturgy you are actually prostrate before the awesome responsibilities you are being equipped to do by Christ’s Church. So, I practiced that.

When Chryse told me to get back up, I didn’t immediately. This was the moment, without others watching, when I could consider what the posture meant and how appropriate it was considering Who I am giving myself to. It is not just the duties that are awesome but  the One to whom they are preformed.

But the clothes? Why the clothes?

Lots of better educated people than me have weighed in on this. First, the clothes weren’t always so out of fashion: they were clothes of a time and offices of that time. Be it later Roman Empire or Medieval vocations. So, I shall be wearing things that reflect that the Church has been through many ages. This is something I can value. Being relevantly fashionable is not the only way to dress.

Then there has been the metaphorical move: over the centuries people began to see the various articles of clothing to picture some theological truth: whether it be the righteousness of Christ or the yoke of His discipleship. This is something that I can value: what we wear has meanings that we ascribe to it, whether or not others see it. 

Next, an Eastern Orthodox author wrote of ‘this unnecessary beauty.’ There is a goodness in abandoning the practical for the sake of the beautiful. This is something I can value. Being casual – and comfortable – is not always most important.

But it’s the  last notion that has caught my imagination. People speak of vestments as being a uniform. They let you know a person’s role. I have used such language myself, but have grown to dislike it.

 No, my funny clothes are not so much a uniform as they are a livery. You know how at the court of a monarch or the country estate of an aristocrat, servants wore a designated livery. It showed whom the servant was serving. The monarch or the aristocrat or visitors to the castle or mansion didn’t wear livery: it was reserved clothing, but reserved for servants.

This is why I shall happily – though not without a certain unavoidable self-consciousness – wear funny clothes as I take vows and have a Bishop ask God’s blessing over me on Saturday. They show beyond doubt who I am serving.

The Rev. Wade Bradshaw is a Deacon at Church of the Good Shepherd in Charlottesville, VA and, along with his wife Chryse, runs Benediction Farm in Rochelle, VA.