They'll Know Us By the T-Shirts That We Wear

When you look around, you can't help but notice something: there's a lot of t-shirts out there. All kinds of t-shirts: t-shirts expressing kitschy/funny quotes or statements, t-shirts expressing love of something (be it the Texas Rangers or Buc-ee's convenience stores), t-shirts expression derision or hate, etc.

There's nothing wrong with t-shirts, in and of themselves. I love t-shirts and have a huge, varied assortment of them. But when we allow our t-shirts to do our living for us or our communicating for us, we might need to take a step back and re-evaluate.

Singer/songwriter Derek Webb has a wonderful song entitled, "T-Shirts (What We Should Be Known For)." There's a line in the song that goes: "They'll know us by the t-shirts that we wear. They'll know us by the way we point and stare." The song, of course, is about followers of Christ who try to live out their faith with their t-shirts that express their disdain for the way other people, presumably people who are not following Christ, are living their lives and the actions that make up their lives.

I think he's on to something there, regardless of our religious heritage or anything else. When our t-shirts speak louder than we do, or in a way that is just plain ill-mannered, we need to re-think things. It's like the old saying goes: "Actions speak louder than words." Perhaps we could put a new twist on it: "Actions speak louder than t-shirts."