Putting on the right shoes

As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. Ephesians 6:14-15

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove quotes this text from the New Revised Standard translation on page 57 of his recent, Wisdom of Stability.

All day long I'm in the foot business, measuring, watching their movement, their pronation, their rigidity, their abduction. Feet are largely overlooked in out society. We are usually embarrassed by the look of them, the smell of them. To many, they seem awkward and even shameful. Outside the cultural norms relative to childrens feet in Montgomery, Alabama, feet are usually covered.

I like bare feet. It feels good come summer to strengthen and harden and callous the skin that cover my feet. It takes me back to childhood. At the least, I want to be in sandals as much as possible. More and more, I'm wearing my running shoes without socks and this seems to toughen up my feet.

This larger pericope from the last chapter written to the church at Ephesus is usually known by the phrase from verse 13, "put on the whole armor of God." To callous and harden one's bare feet is to at least start the process of armoring the feet before shoes are even considered.