Appearance

The thought occurred to me today that regardless of what I think, regardless of what I want or believe to be right, culture will judge and categorize me in the way that they want to.  Our appearance or actions take place within a cultural context.  This means that the prevailing culture gets to define what things mean.  In the case of the American, unfortunately, that definition is controlled by vanity and worldliness.  This should drive us to respond in a way that points those seeing us towards Christ and away from us.  The struggle is in determining what that looks like.  This takes wisdom.  And for this wisdom we need to gain guidance from the church fathers and from our immediate priest. 
We can't control how people think but we can control what we say and do and this can lead others to Christ.