The Olympics started last week, and I’ll be glued to my television until they end. But the U.S. uniforms—designed by Ralph Lauren and made, alas, in China—were not well thought out. Everyone’s made fun of the berets (no problem; they’ll just trade them for other teams’ headgear), but my own personal peeve is requiring that the women athletes wear silk skirts.

Expensive silk skirts, at that. Excuse me? These are athletes, not ballet dancers.

Sometimes dress codes are useful, but they have to be well thought out. If what one is required to wear has no basis in either practicality or suitability, rethink the code. There’s precedent for that: Many religious orders modified their habits after Vatican II, because what had been the ordinary dress of the founder’s era no longer suited the order’s ministry hundreds of years later.

What does this have to do with music ministry? A lot. I once had a job for which the contract required that a female choir director must wear a skirt. I ignored it, of course; it was unenforceable, since it had absolutely no basis in any kind of rational thought. (I haven’t worn skirts in about 20 years, not with schlepping around a heavy guitar case and satchel of music.) I wound up leaving anyhow, but I would love to have fought that particular battle.

I hear complaints from folks about their choir directors (“Her skirts are waaaay too short, and you can see too much!”) and complaints from folks about choir members (“Her skirts are waaaay too short, and you can see too much!”). Now short skirts are a fact of life these days, but when you’re distracting the very people you’re trying to serve, something has to give.

Stay tuned.

M.D. Ridge