From: J.A.

Date: 7-30-2017

Subject: How to dress for church

I never asked if it was ok to be barefoot in church or not. I just showed up in bare feet when I moved into my new community earlier this year. I did not receive any negative comments at all, but a bunch of very interesting discussions around bare feet.

In the meantime my wife and me became very good friends with the pastor, who is coincidentally also my next door neighbor, so not too long ago I asked him straight out, if he had a problem with it (he never talked to me about my bare feet before) he just laughed and said, while this lifestyle is definitively not for him due to his oversensitive feet, he does not understand why anybody should have an issue with it.

He sees nothing disrespectful or unhygienic about it. He actually admired how I was able to move around on the sharp gravel around his place and the church…..He is the same pastor who will marry my daughter in 3 weeks….she and her future husband will have a barefoot wedding as well….

I wonder, if we as barefooters once in a while tend to over analyze how others might see us….doing research online, if it is OK or not to be barefoot at a certain place…..I am past that point….I just show up the way I am….in 95% of all times, there is no problem, in 4% of the times it works out as it is obviously easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission and the remaining 1%?…..meh, I just move on and go somewhere else.

In spite of anxiety, which I had in my early barefoot days, I think I build up enough of a thick skin to just ignore the few uneducated and boneheaded people out there trying to push their shod morals onto me…I don’t even bother to justify my lifestyle anymore, I just stay friendly and polite, that usually takes the wind out of their sails as they are mostly looking for a confrontation…..their loss in the end!  🙂

Greetings, J.A.