For my weekly writing spot on this site, see the One-Minute Mystic, with a new meditation posted every Monday. Also see The Village, the story of Misty Longings, England's most beautiful village, posted episode by episode earlier this year.       Sometimes Wayne Rooney's work colleagues are a bit rude about his clothes. From the first of a series of autobiographies, we hear this: "I don't understand these players, and there are quite a few, who turn up in the latest fashion everyday. The united players have a go at me and call me a scruff – because I usually turn up in slippers. I have two pairs, just ordinary carpet slippers, one from M&S and the other just a cheap pair with an England flag on the front brought from the market." So the best footballer in England is criticised for his dress sense; given stick for how he looks. Yet I don't see many fashion models being criticised for their lack of football skills. I don't hear of Kate Moss being endlessly ribbed by Naomi Campbell for her inability to turn on a sixpence, power between two defenders and split the net with a shot. Perhaps one day footballers will give teammates stick for not drinking fair-trade coffee or for being appalling parents, but for the moment, it's all about looking good. You must look the part – whatever the part is you're being asked to play. Only Wayne doesn't look the part. He's just a scruffy football genius. And that won't do at all. For Wayne, of course, read Jesus. As Isaiah politely puts it, "He had no form of comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." In other words, he looked a disgrace, when really, with a little more effort, he could have looked the part. Is that really too much to ask? That the messiah looks the part? It was clearly too much to ask of Michael Foot when he was leader of the Labour Party. I remember the world coming to a standstill, and the sun falling out of the sky the day he wore an old overcoat to the Remembrance gathering at the cenotaph in Whitehall. How could he be so insensitive? How could you trust him with the country? We can be sure the politicians and generals who created the meaningless nightmare of the Somme had well polished shoes, and as St Paul probably said, "The shoes revealeth the man." This isn't about religious hypocrisy, which dribbles on about the significance of the inner life, but makes most judgments from rather different criteria. Rather, it is about me, and an incident from which I am still recovering. I was visiting the Bishop of London and had lost my bearings in the City. I approached a professional looking gent, to ask directions. "Could you tell me the way to St Paul's?" I asked hopefully. I don't think he was listening, because he said to me: "I don't give money to beggars." Of course, I wouldn't have minded if I could turn on a sixpence, power between two defenders and split the net with a shot. More writings © Simon Parke