I recently went to a wedding of a family friend. The timing of this was bold, as we were right in the middle of college football season. Fall weddings are beautiful, though, and my favorite team wasn’t playing. So no real harm done. I always struggle with a wedding gift for people. I don’t want to simply get something on someone’s registry. It is very practical, and you are assured of getting a gift that the newlyweds actually want. They picked everything out, after all. But something about that whole process doesn’t sit well with me. It lacks a personal touch. And getting a registry gift leaves nothing to the element of surprise. I want my gifts to have an air of mystery to them. So I decided to get two things for the couple. First I gave them the universal gift card: a money card. That is always appreciated. And I also decided on a Christmas tree ornament, one that said “First Christmas together.” That covered all my bases: the universal gift of money plus something unexpected that (most likely) no one else would give.
I did some research on this, of course. I wanted to know what the most popular wedding gift registry items were. It will probably surprise no one to know that the number one registry item is the KitchenAid mixer. Those things are great. Another very popular (top five) item is towels. I am betting that doesn’t come as much of a surprise either. Towels are a great gift because couples don’t really care to buy their own that much, but they love to get them. So I looked into this further and found out a lot about towels in general.
Have you ever wondered where towels came from? Ancient Rome and Egypt had them thousands of years ago. Linen or cotton cloths were used to dry the body after communal bathing. Early towels were pretty simple, just rectangular pieces knitted by hand. It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that towels really took off. They actually became a symbol of status. Not everyone could afford the luxury of a towel made by hand. The nobility would have very elaborate towels made for themselves, often with monograms and embroidery. These expensive items were used as bathroom decorations as well as for drying. So towels were a type of status symbol.
Are towels still seen as a status symbol? How much would you pay for a towel? You don’t have to pay much for a basic one. But if you really wanted to go all out, you could. Here is a description of a really nice set of towels I found for sale on-line:
Our exceptional Egyptian Cotton Towels are woven to 800 gsm with Aerocotton technology, a special spinning process that creates extra-long yarns with a luxuriously soft hand, superior absorbency, and quick-drying properties. Stronger, and more absorbent than regular cotton, Egyptian cotton lends itself magnificently to bath towels.
• Cotton is first combed, then woven to a luxurious 800 gsm
• 4″ decorative jacquard chain-link dobby on both ends
• Monogram available on the dobby
• Machine wash
• Bath towels feature a 2-1/2″H monogram; hand towels feature a 2″H monogram regardless of font style
Made in Turkey.
The next question to ask is how many towels do you need? I looked this up too. Most of the answers I got gave a range of 2 to 6 bath towels per person. But this can vary depending on your needs. If you are a person with a lot of hair, for example, you may want to use two towels with every shower or bath: one for your body and another for your hair. You also have to think of the likelihood of having guests and their towel needs.
This is fun. Let’s keep going.
How many plate settings do you need? A family of four should have a minimum of 6 to 8 plates, I read. If you have four people and twice as many plates then you can eat two full meals before you have to do the dishes. What about shoes? How many sneakers do you need? It turns out the average man has seven pairs and the average woman has 6 pairs. In 2018 over 26 percent of Americans reported buying two pairs of sneakers.
Do we need all of this stuff?
Matthew 3:1-6
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
4 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
How many towels do you think John the Baptist had? How many shoes did he own?
John was an ascetic. This is a fancy word for a person who does away with material comforts in favor of a life of self-discipline. This leads itself to a simplified way of life, often for religious reasons. The practice was common in the early history of the church. It (in my opinion) got out of hand later when people went to extremes to practice self-denial, which included self flogging. These people pointed to Romans 7:18-25, which begins this way:
“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
Today asceticism is practiced by monks and some nuns. Amish communities too also practice a form of asceticism. Ascetics seek to take away the pleasures of the body in order to focus on the spirit. Do we have to do this? Is it necessary to deny ourselves in this fashion? People can’t agree on this, but here is what I think. If something is getting in the way of your spiritual growth, it probably needs to go away, or at least be hindered. If that means you should become an ascetic, then so be it. But I think for most of us we can find a middle ground where we choose to not focus on the things that get in the way of spiritual growth for us. Focus is I think the right way of thinking about it. We probably should dampen those things that tend to take away our focus on what really matters in life.
I am not throwing away my towels. But I might think twice about pursuing the best towels ever made when the towels I have now will do.
God Bless