During the Christmas break my family and I ventured out to ride on The Polar Express. We rode a real train, drank hot chocolate and sang Christmas carols. People from all walks of life attended. We saw older couples, young children, hipsters and immigrants. While we all had separate journeys that brought us to The Polar Express, we were united in one thing: pajama pants.
When I first bought the tickets for our ride on The Polar Express, I noted that in the information about the trip we were encouraged to wear our pajamas. My initial reaction to this invitation was that it would be fun for my kids to wear their PJs and for me to observe from the sidelines, but not participate. I had a change of heart by the time we headed out to taken in the festivities as I wore my best Star Wars-themed pajama pants.
Upon our arrival at the train station my wife and I took note of the many different people that gathered. We also noted the many different styles and colors of pajamas that were worn by the young and old. Dads were wearing cartoon-inspired, sports-inspired, and food inspired pants and not one was embarrassed.
Pajama pants are the great equalizer. They do not flatter anyone, they are never in style and they are not practical at. (Try keeping your wallet in the pockets. It is impossible.) But on this night, no one cared about that.
As we rode the train my wife brought up the notion that despite our differences, all of the people on that train were happy and kind to one another.
This brought to my mind an analogy.
When we, the people of the world, focus on one good thing, (the gospel of Jesus Christ) we see past our differences (clothing and possessions) and we work together.
There is one place that I have found this to be true and that place is the temple. When we enter the temple, we replace our worldly clothing with simple, white clothing. We are not influenced by patterns and style, but rather we focus on Jesus Christ and serving those on the other side of the veil.
I had the chance to be a temple worker a number of years ago and I felt that we, the workers in the temple, were always united by serving those who came to the temple. We worked well together with each other because we did not focus on possessions, appearance or style. The temple continues to be my favorite place to be for that reason.
So remember, if we don’t care about what others wear and we are focused on a common goal, we can do a lot of great things. Keep this in mind the next time another guy has the same tie as you in Priesthood meeting.