Posted: Tuesday, October 25, 2016 6:00 pm

A rising need among the NU student population has recently come to the attention of faculty and chapel staff: inadequate apparel to face the coming winter. Although the students are donning coats, boots, scarves, and even gloves against the cold, their pants are mysteriously riddled with holes and slashes.

Looking beyond the potential risk for frostbite, some chapel staff are concerned this issue is rooted in a deeper problem: a misunderstanding of the spiritual concept ‘holy.’

“Last semester, one of the chapel speakers talked about being holy,” commented Tommy Hill, apprentice to the assistant pastor. “He was preaching, ‘God wants everything to be holy!’ and ‘Make everything in your life holy unto the Lord!’”

Hill and others are now concerned that although students were attentively listening as they took notes on their phones, laptops, and textbooks, they misinterpreted the speaker and began to intentionally incorporate ventilation into their garments out of attempted obedience.

Levi Lucky, assistant to Hill, speculated the denim knee-holes may be due to a different, more positive cause—not a misunderstanding of a theological term, but an increase in the students’ spirituality.

“Northwest is well known for having a strong focus on prayer,” Lucky explained. “We pray before midterms, for each others’ ‘unspokens,’ before eating Caf food, before practicing injections in nursing class, when we don’t buy a parking permit all semester—and so on.”

Lucky theorized that students are taking 1 Thessalonians 5:17, where Paul writes to “pray unceasingly,” as a literal command to ‘stop, drop, and kneel’ at all times, which has taken its toll on NU students’ denim.

Both Lucky and Hill agreed that unless students are taking the knee sooner, ‘Ring by Spring’ had been ruled out as a potential cause.

Whether ‘holy jeans’ or ‘prayer badges,’ the issue is urgent: with estimates that up to 67% of the total pants material throughout campus is missing entirely, up from 40% in 2014. The university is prepared to redress this problem.

Gene Lee, paid volunteer for NUSG, commentated: “This issue may flare and then fade, but let’s get it straight: Northwest is here to help. However slim our efforts, we aim to assist all distressed students.”

A variety of free jean patches from black to faded, olive to mustard are now available at the NUSG office, along with informational brochures on the definition of holy.