Because HE is wearing a NICE suit!

“The mission of women today is of crucial importance. In some way, they have the key to sanity -- the first step toward a conversion. For super-nature is based on nature, and unless we go back to a natural soundness, the sublimity of the supernatural message will be lost to most of us. Why do they have the key? Because their influence on men is enormous when they truly understand their role and mission.” - Alice von Hildebrand

Like every other high school and college girl on the planet, I rushed to the movie theater at midnight on November 20th (which also happened to be my birthday) to watch a movie about a vampire, werewolf, and human love triangle. Now, I don’t have anything against Twilight, but I do have a bone to pick with Jacob Black. Why? Because every single time Taylor Lautner took his shirt off, all I could hear were sighs of disgusting, girlish amazement at his digitalized, completely unrealistic abs.

Ok, I’ll admit...I watched the Hannah Montana movie because I thought Lucas Till was an extremely good looking sample of the male species. But when I was sitting in Twilight, it hit me. You know how girls are always complaining about how they just HATE it when the guys talk about how “hot” a movie star is? Well, have we ever stepped back to look at the fact that maybe they feel the same way about us?

Sure, I like watching some movies and stuff just because there are some good looking guys in them, but honestly, when all you can talk about among your friends is who has the best bod, then it’s gone too far. Because we have an obligation to practice a certain type of respect towards each other, and when we bring guys (or girls) down to the level of eye candy we’re certainly not looking at their souls or their personalities.

We should be setting the example for what we want to see from the guys, because otherwise it just becomes a vicious circle of offending each other over and over again. And who wants that, right?

As much as I almost hate to admit it, I think my speech coach was actually right for once. You see, he made a rule that when we’re on a tournament, we’re not allowed to comment on the physical appearance of anyone. Of course, that didn’t stop us from creating codes for that (like “Oh doesn't he have a nice suit on?” or “He is a GREAT American!”), but somehow I can’t help thinking that Mr. G does have a point.

You see, we should always strive to have the utmost respect for our fellow humans, and it can get annoying when a guy is checking you out like you’re the choice meat of the day at Dan’s Supermarket. But it’s OUR attitudes and actions that will change THEIR attitudes and actions. What are YOU going to do about it?

So say all the sappy love songs I've ever heard...

“A woman's heart should be so deeply hidden in Christ that it takes a man seeking God to find it.” - Unknown

Up until, oh maybe five minutes ago, I had no plans to write on this subject anytime soon...and then I heard the new Michael Buble song, “Haven’t Met You Yet’, and I was inspired.

Why? Because what’s the reason that we practice the virtue of modesty? So that we can remain pure, but also so that we can help our brothers in Christ remain pure. And another amazing thing that we can do, something that comes hand in hand with modesty, is to pray for “our guys”...especially one specific guy, our future husbands.

Yah, yah, I know that sounds cheesy, but the power of prayer is so incredible! And you never know who or what might be just around the corner. I love the comfort of knowing that he’s out there somewhere, and that there is something that I can do for him, even though I have no idea who he is.

“I might have to wait,

I’ll never give up.

I guess it's half timin', and the other half's luck.

Wherever you are,

Whenever it's right,

You'll come outta nowhere and into my life!

And I know that we can be so amazin',

And baby, your love is gonna change me,

And now I can see every possibility.

Somehow I know that it’ll all turn out,

You'll make me work so we can work to work it out,

And I promise you kid, I'll give so much more than I get,

I just haven't met you yet!”

I certainly don’t want anything to happen to him, and I can only pray that he doesn’t make too many mistakes (or even better, none at all). There’s a comfort in knowing that Someone knows exactly where those prayers need to go, and that He’ll make sure they get to him.

I’ve heard of women who write letters to their future husbands, and men who write letters to their future wives. I can’t help but wonder sometimes how beautiful it must be to exchange those as you exchange your wedding vows. Not only that, but just knowing that there was someone out there who cared about you that much before they even met you? Wow! Seriously, tell me how that’s not absolutely crazily romantic and sexy?

Even though I know that nobody is perfect, I like to follow that up with the ridiculously cheesy line “there’s still someone who’s perfect for me”. Yet, I know that the most important thing is to keep my sights focused on the person who IS perfect...God. Like the quote from the beginning of this post, the best thing that any woman will ever do is to make God her number one. Because once that happens, the man who has to find her in Him will be well worth every moment of waiting. What could be better?

So, lose yourself in God, let Him be your guide, and He’ll bring you to where you need to be. And no matter what happens, you’ll always have the most amazing Man ever in your life!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

“Modesty is a reflex, arising naturally to help a woman protect her hopes and guide their fulfillment – specifically this hope for one man. Of course, along with this hope comes a certain vulnerability, because every time a man fails to stick by us, our hopes are, in a sense, dashed. This is where modesty fits in. For modesty armed this special vulnerability – not to oppress women, but with the aim of putting them on equal footing with men.” - Wendy Shalit, “A Return to Modesty”

You’re getting ready for your first date with this amazing guy who you haven’t known for long, but you just KNOW that he’s going to treat you right. You’re all primped up and waiting for him to come knock on your door, and then it happens. Your worst nightmare. He honks his horn at you from your driveway...

Ouch! Life’s tough sometimes, and it doesn’t always quite meet our expectations. Does that mean that we shouldn’t have those expectations in the first place though, or does it mean that something else is just not right?

When you were a kid, how often were you told by your dad or some other mentor that you should ALWAYS make guys treat you like a princess? I know my dad told me that, and still tells me that, all the time. He even took me out for my “first date” on my sixteenth birthday and at the end of the night explained to me that I should expect nothing less than how he treated me from any other guy. Thanks Daddy!

Yet, the older I get, the more I wonder...how many guys out there actually know how to treat a girl like a princess? I mean, holding car doors open and pulling a chair out for a gal is so old fashioned these days, no one does that stuff anymore, right? But wow, I sure wish it wasn’t. Even though it feels like I’ll never get that kind of treatment, I still expect it and I still want it. I think it’s a desire that’s in every woman’s heart (and guys would be smart to know, and listen, to that).

I love that song by JoJo, you know, the one with the lyrics that go “if you want me so much, then I have to know are you thoughtful and kind, do you care what’s on my mind. Or am I just for show? You’ll go far in this world if you know how to touch a girl.” It reminds me that the desire to treated like a lady isn’t old fashioned, that it still matters. Because if you know how to treat a girl, you’ll be able to win her over completely, and that’s saying a lot!

Why is it so important though, that we hold on to these expectations? Well, I don’t know if my answer is completely THE answer, but I’ll definitely take a shot at explaining why. To me, I know that it is important that I can feel loved, but how do I measure love? When someone is willing to go out of their way to take care of me, remind me that they’re looking out for me, that they’re thinking about me...that’s when I know that they really love me. Because of this, I feel that it’s extremely important that outward expressions of care and affection are shown, but I also think that these expressions should be ones of respect.

Respect...and THAT is what is boils down to. A woman wants to respect herself. When someone else, especially a guy, shows her that he respects her, it is then that she starts to truly be able to respect herself.

In every girl’s heart is the deep and powerful longing to be cared for, to be loved, to be respected, and to be treated like a REAL princess. So is chivalry dead? I don’t know...guys, why don’t you tell me? Or even better: PROVE IT!

Silence CAN be golden!

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.” - C.S. Lewis

Is love easy? Wow, isn’t that a question for the record books!? I could say so many things about it, but no matter what I said, those words would never describe it’s true meaning or what it can be. Love is the absolute hardest thing that anyone can feel, yet the most amazingly simple thing. It is painful, full of hardships and sacrifice, it hurts a lot; yet somehow it manages to be the most satisfying and thrilling thing that any two persons will ever experience. And how is this so? Because it is LOVE, and that is what everyone longs for.

Why are we so willing to risk the heartbreak and the pain for something we’re sometimes not even sure about ourselves? It’s because we’re seeking something greater and more beyond what we could ever possibly imagine. Love is the fulfillment of everything that we are, what we want to be, what we do and what we believe. Because of this, we’re willing to risk everything that we have in order to give and receive it. But sometimes, we can let our hearts get carried away and fall too hard, too fast. This is where something called “emotional modesty” comes in.

Emotional modesty is something that I didn’t even know existed until about a year ago. I kinda had an idea about it, but I didn’t actually know that there was a name for it, or that it was just as important as physical modesty. I learned about the basics of emotional modesty when I took a class on the Theology of the Body, and then I was able to put a name to it during a Q&A session this past summer.

It’s actually one of the most useful things I’ve ever heard of. It banks off of the idea of Proverbs 4:23, “With closest custody, guard your heart; for in it are the sources of life.” All of us, men and women alike, need to learn how to protect ourselves from falling for “that special someone” overnight. Love at first sight? I don’t quite agree with that. Sure, infatuation can happen in an instant, but are you willing to believe that a man can look at a woman (or vice versa) and instantly be willing to sacrifice his entire life for someone he doesn’t know? Now THAT would be impressive!

See the thing with emotional modesty is that it’s meant to help us, so that we don’t get our hearts broken every week. Do you remember that first crush you had in middle school or junior high? You would always bump into your crush and try to find little excuses to go near or look at him. But at one point, you suddenly realized that he didn’t like you back, and boy, did that hurt! But it wasn’t so bad, because you were little and you recovered quickly. But as you get older, it gets harder to recover quickly, and you’re heart starts to invest too deeply to take everything back so easily. And that’s when we open ourselves up for heartbreak.

The most crucial thing to remember about protecting your heart is that you don’t have to share every little thing about yourself with someone. There’s a difference in sharing everything with your bestie, but when you start opening your heart up and sharing more than your life story with a guy (or girl, if you’re a guy reading this), even if you’re dating, it gets dangerous. You’re investing yourselves in each other emotionally, and too much self-disclosure can hurt a relationship that’s in the beginning stages.

Mother Teresa said, “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only love.” We want to love each other until it hurts, but we DON’T want to hurt ourselves so that we can’t love.

P.S. I think I love you

“You have made me, Oh God, to live forever in Your love...my heart is restless, until it finds rest in You.” - St. Augustine

Ok, so up to this point I’ve kinda shared some insights about little things here and there that have to do with modesty. But tonight, as I sat here trying to figure out what to write about this week, I realized that one thing I haven’t shared yet is the biggest reason why I am so passionate about it! So here goes...bring on the fire, this post is gonna get a little more personal.

I am, by nature, an extremely intense person. You can get me pretty fired up about a subject, but I’m also one of those people who refuses to stop just at the tip of the iceberg...I have to go all the way. And in all the different life experiences that I’ve been blessed (and not so blessed) with, I have discovered a very deep and powerful desire to love in an extreme way...so I do! In fact, the basic principle of ethics states that all men desire happiness. The way that I find myself searching for this happiness is in, through, and by loving people.

I have a confession to make. I’ve never had some deep relationship that opened my eyes on how to love another human being with everything I have, exclusively. Actually, in high school, I thought that there was something wrong with me because of that. I thought that the way to discover how to love was by “getting a boyfriend”. And I’m not gonna lie, right after senior year of high school and into the beginning of freshman year of college, I got one...but I found that I couldn’t pour all of my intensity into loving him, it didn’t work. So we broke up, I moped for a little bit, and life went on.

A few months after that, I was reading through some papers from Fr. Shea’s senior religion class, and my eyes focused on a poem written the notes, a beautiful piece from St. Augustine’s Confessions:

Late have I loved You, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new...late have I loved You!

You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for You.

In my unloveliness, I plunged into the lovely things which You created.

You were with me, but I was not with You.

Created things kept me from You; yet if they had not been in You they would have not been at all.

And so You called, You shouted, and You broke through my deafness.

You flashed, You shone, and You dispelled my blindness.

You breathed Your fragrance on me...I drew in breath and now I pant for You.

I have tasted You...now I hunger and thirst for more.

You touched me...and I burned for Your peace.

It was in that moment, that I suddenly learned how to love, and Who to love. It’s still something I’ve never actually felt...yah that’s right, I’ve never actually felt that warm, fuzzy feeling that love (or is it really just infatuation?) is supposedly known for, and yet for some reason I know that I love, and I know that I’m crazy enough to do absolutely anything and everything for Him. And you know why? Because I know that I have the capacity to love, and in this capacity to love, is an intense longing to help everyone love the way that I do! Who cares what they think about me, as long as I’m giving of myself entirely in an abandonment to love, nothing and no one can shake me.

So I’m extreme, crazy, and intense in every sense of those words. If you knew some of the things that I do in the name of that intense love I have, it would blow your mind. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime, maybe I won’t. It depends on how I feel about it. But for the record, I’m writing this because I care, because I’m passionate about it, because I LOVE YOU! Enter: Modesty...

Can I, may I, have this dance?

“Every little girl knows about love. It is only her capacity to suffer because of it that increases.” - Francoise Sagan

Imagine being six again. You’re a little girl, or a little boy. Ever experience is new and exciting, and life is just beginning for you. Nothing you want to do is impossible to fathom, and everything that you dream is possible. Insects, flowers, twigs, and dirt are the best toys that you could possibly ever imagine, and you are too innocent to realize the heartache that it will cause Mom when you come back to the house covered head to toe in mud!

We were all young and innocent at one point in our lives. I know when I was a little girl I absolutely loved dressing up in fancy, way-to-big-on-me dresses and dancing around the house. Then, in true six year old fashion, I’d go outside and jump around enough that the dress would be covered in dirt. I’d give almost anything to go back to those carefree days when heartbreak was impossible and the most hurt I encountered amounted to scraped and bruised knees.

These days, it’s so much easier to get hurt. Knees aren’t the only things that get cuts and bruises anymore, hearts do too. And heartbreak isn’t nearly as easy to clean up as a scraped knee is. A woman, the same one who once was a little girl pretending to be a princess, is now pretending to be other things. She doesn’t dance because it’s fun anymore, she dances to feel more secure about herself. She doesn’t dress up so that she can feel beautiful anymore, she dresses up so that she can feel beautiful when someone else tells her that she is...even when that someone else really doesn’t mean it. Sure, she’s a grown up, but deep down inside, I’ll bet that more than anything, she wishes that she was a kid again. All she wants to do, is be a princess.

Girls, let yourself be that princess, because you ARE one! Don’t let yourselves be bogged down by the world’s expectations, but be beautiful because you ARE beautiful, not because you have to be. Dressing modestly begins with the heart.

Daaang!!! Check out that floor length jumper!

“Most girls will be quick to point out that lust is the guy’s problem, and she shouldn’t be liable. This is because most girls don’t understand how guys are wired. Guys are, initially, sexually stimulated visually. They are quickly moved by what they see to begin dwelling on an eventual outcome. Girls, on the other hand, are generally, stimulated by touch. Since she doesn’t commonly experience the same process of stimulation, she often isn’t cognizant of the signals or messages she is sending to the opposite sex. It is our duty as followers of Christ to recognize gender differences and processes and be careful not to cause others to stumble.” - Modesty: Developing Dress Codes

As my ministry team discussed modesty this summer, and considered some problems we’d been having with it, we brainstormed ideas about the most effective way to get girls to realize that it is kind of a big deal. At one point, we just felt like we weren’t really getting anywhere, so we decided to take a break for a little bit. As we left, our team leader/boss gave me a CD talk to listen to, claiming that it might help me think of some ideas.

As I listened to this talk, I found something very interesting in what the speaker did. At one point in the talk, he read a handful of testimony letters from men in the community. These men wrote about how the different aspects of modesty effected them, no matter how hard they tried to make it not matter. Between hearing these letters be read and remembering one moment from a little earlier in the summer, I started to create an idea to help girls care more about what we were saying.

The thought that came to my mind from the summer was a memory of multiple discussions I’d had with one of the guys I worked with. Daniel and I actually had a lot of conversations about modesty and purity in general over the few months that we were working together, and he shared a lot of things that were really helpful to know from a girl’s perspective, some of which I’ll share in a later blog.

Between those conversations, and knowing that one of the most powerful things that I’ve ever had said to me was being thanked by a guy for being modest, I came up with the plan to collect letters from young men, ranging from mid-highschool to college age, who would be willing to write about the struggle it was to be Christian and pure in today’s world, and how important it is for girls to CARE about modesty. On top of that, Daniel agreed that he would talk to the girls himself, as well as thank them for dressing modestly.

To make a long story short, it seemed to work pretty well. It tugged the heart-strings to hear young, great, Christian guys write about purity, and it meant a lot to girls to have a guy thank them for being the women of God that they’re called to be.

Now, it doesn’t stop there, because one of my awesome guy friends who wrote one of those letters was also amazing enough to give me permission to post in here on my blog too! I know,personally, that as a young woman trying to live purely and modestly, it helps so, so much to know that I’m choosing to do the right thing, because there is so much crap out there telling me otherwise. Here’s what my friend wrote:

“I try to be the best guy I can be and I can treat any girl with outright respect with whatever she is wearing. The underlying problem is the way I think on the inside however. I'm a guy, and people always say, "It's okay, I'm just a guy," and as lame of an excuse as that is, there is a little bit of truth there. When girls wear low tops or short bottoms it's my natural instinct to think, "Daaang!!" This physical attraction is obviously natural, but our society has told us that physical attraction is all there is. If you can't seduce a guy through sex appeal, then you have no hope. As a guy, naturally that's the first thing I notice, but it's become really hard for me personally because sometimes it becomes all I notice. The fact that sex appeal is such a big distraction in everyday life, however, makes me more attracted to modestly dressed women because they seem so much fuller and more real. I don't know if that makes sense but I guess since without the distraction of the details of the female body, I can see her beauty in other ways. It's tough to explain but basically I always hear guys say," She's someone you don't hook up with. She's more the marrying type." Those girls are always the modestly dressed ones, and obviously get more respect, whether the guys mean to or not. The guys don't see her as an object but rather as a person.”

Wow! Every time I read that, I feel so thankful for the young men who are trying to do the right thing. It’s encouraging to know that there actually are guys out there who appreciate the virtue of modesty. If you are a guy reading this, thank you SO much for being real and striving to remain pure. If you’re a girl, just know that there are guys out there who appreciate you. Thanks for being the amazing you that you are!

You're crazy...you're crazy...but I love ya!

“When we find ourselves drawn towards other people, when we want to know more about them and make ourselves known to them, we are responding to God’s call - a call that is imprinted in our nature as beings created in the image and likeness of God, the God of communication and communion.”

- Pope Benedict XVI

Think about it. You roll out of bed in the morning, brush your teeth, and throw on the clothes that are closest to your reach (after you smell them to make sure they’re not too dirty). Now, if you’re like me, it’s too much effort to even THINK about whether or not you want to do something with your hair. I mean, really...who cares what you look like, right? Seriously, people should be glad that I even brush my teeth! Well, I certainly hope that you don’t do this EVERY morning, and I promise that I don’t...well at least not every single morning!

It does make you think about some pretty important stuff though, because modesty isn’t just about covering yourself up. It’s about communicating your values through the way that you dress, allowing others to see what you believe by their mere perception of you. So if you don’t put some time into how you look, it can actually detract from the beauty within, believe it or not. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to spend hours in front of the mirror making sure that your eyebrows are plucked perfectly, THAT'S vanity! But when you wake up and roll out of bed, you should ask yourself two questions as you get dressed and ready for the day:

1) Is the way I look today going to scream out to people that there is something different about me than everyone else?,

and

2) What do I want to communicate to the world today?

One of the most influential statements I’ve ever heard someone say to me is this: that as Christians, we’re not called to be a part of the world and “fit in”. On the contrary, we’re called to live radically different. RADICALLY different! It should be obvious to people in the way we dress, speak, walk, and act, what we believe and profess to be true. So go put on your sack cloth and ashes! Hurry up, what are you waiting for?! Alright, maybe everyone doesn’t need to be QUITE that radical. But did you know that the word “radical” actually means “thorough and complete”? Not "crazy, lunatic dive bomber"! Basically, the idea is that we need to immerse ourselves in a Christian modesty that is so complete and virtuous that we don’t even hesitate when it’s time to make a choice. Because as much as you try to communicate what you believe, it’s not gonna work until you start communicating in your dress, casual speech, and actions.

So, when you wake up tomorrow, what are you going to decide to tell people?

It’s your decision what you’re going to communicate, so make a good one!

Yah, yah...it's legit! The Modesty Survey

A couple blogs ago, I mentioned finding a list of things that guys had said about modesty. Believe it or not, it comes from an online survey sponsored by THE REBELUTION. A survey of over 1,600 guys across the country in 2007, it can help give you an idea of what real guys actually think, if you don't always feel like taking my word for it!

Check it out:

http://www.therebelution.com/modestysurvey/

Keep in mind that I, as well as my fellow gal friends, were still confused about some of the answers to the survey. If you have any questions, I'm gonna say that your best bet for checking in on them and finding answers would be to ask your dad, brother, or a close and trusted guy friend. If you are a guy reading this, check out the petition on the homepage and feel free to contribute to it!

Churchified...only for the brave!

“The way we dress in the church environment or elsewhere doesn't make God love us more than He already does, but it exhibits our personality and spiritual maturity in a very profound way. It shows who we are within, when others look at us, they watch how we dress and learn something about us.” - Edyta Tehrani

One of the craziest things I’ve ever witnessed, with respect to modesty, is when girls go to church, Mass, etc., and they’re dressed like they’re going to head out to the clubs as soon as it’s over. I’m not talking about women coming to Mass with sleeveless tops and without a mantilla on their head. Even though I personally won’t bare my shoulders in a church atmosphere, I know that there are people who would criticize me that I don’t cover my head there either! So, those are details that tend to distract from the more pertinent issue at hand, a true understanding of how a woman should dress at Mass. (Sorry, I’m Catholic, so when I say Mass, I mean church in general, and I use the two words interchangeably) Is there an “unsaid” dress code that should be followed? Or does it really even matter at all?

First of all, I want to say that I’m not endorsing the idea of being careful about the way you dress in church, but not out of it. On the other hand, I DO believe that a girl needs to take EXTRA care in how she dresses in church. Why? Well first of all, it sets an example to everyone watching. “Sure, sure,” you might think, “people shouldn’t judge me for what I wear.” But the thing is that people don’t JUDGE you on what you wear...they SEE you. I’m not just talking about visually seeing you, but actually seeing into your soul and what you represent. The clothes that you wear are actually a part of how you present your “self” to the world. When you put your clothes on in the morning, you may not consciously think this, but your sub-conscience is telling you that this is how you’re going to communicate your identity to the world today. It’s for this reason that you,as a young woman, both need to be careful about what image you’re portraying to the world, ESPECIALLY at Mass.

Another reason to care about what you wear to Mass is the fact that it can actually be a distraction to the guys there. Over this summer, I was at the shooting for a TV series with Fr. Tom Morrow (no kidding, that’s his name!), the author of Christian Courtship in an Oversexed World: A Guide for Young Catholics, and he told me and the other few young people who were there a story about a young man whom he had once spoken with. This young man went to Sunday Mass one day at his local parish, as he always did, but this particular Sunday he happened to sit down to a beautiful young woman whom he didn’t know. Now this woman happened to be wearing a very low cut, cleavage baring top, and throughout the entire Mass the man struggled with his thoughts until finally he felt that he couldn’t even go up to receive Holy Communion because his thoughts were becoming adamantly more lustful as time went on. After Mass, the young man politely tapped the young woman on the shoulder and when she turned around, said to her, “Excuse me ma’am, but I felt that you might want to know this. I wasn’t able to receive Communion today because of what you’re wearing.”

I don’t know what that young woman did after that. Maybe she ran to the nearest burkha store and never showed any skin again, or maybe lost all hope and headed straight to the street corner. Although I doubt that either of those are true, I would assume that she took her brother in Christ’s simple comment as a charitable hint to think more carefully about what she wore and how it influenced those around her. The point I’m trying to make is this, as women, we have a very powerful gift in our sexuality, and when we are immodestly dressed we can unknowingly lead our brothers into sin. We want to try and help prevent this as much as we can, ESPECIALLY when we are in the very presence of the Holy Sacrament, or just in church in general. It's just common sense girls!

MODEST Shopaholics! (Anonymous?)

“One of the deadliest obstacles to the practical power of [modesty] is an undercurrent of suspicion that ‘the thing can’t be done’”

Gerard Kelly in his book “Chastity: A Guide For Young Teens”

For a girl trying to practice the virtue of modesty, one of the biggest challenges is shopping for the right clothes. Sure, it’s not impossible to find something nice and trendy that covers everything, but what about the peer pressure? What about the friend who encourages you to buy the dress that’s too short? Or the one who takes you shopping for your birthday and really, really wants you to get that top with the low neckline? The issue with shopping isn’t as much about FINDING the right clothes as it is about BEING with the right people, or knowing what to say to the ones who don’t have quite the same guidelines as you. So what DO you say when you’re stuck in a sticky situation that you want to get out of?

There are tons of options out there for facing peer pressure, but obviously one of the biggest and best answers is to be yourself. If you think something you try is too short, then say it out loud then don’t back down. Who cares if Stacy or Amy think it’s adorable on you?! If YOU think it’s not long enough, or doesn’t cover enough, then YOU don’t need to buy it! Sure, it can be harder than it sounds to just say “no”, so think about it this way. You go out and buy that dress with your friends, and then it sits in your closet for years because you’re uncomfortable wearing it. Sound familiar? Yah, I know it’s happened to me plenty of times. On the other hand, there’s always the temptation sitting there begging you to PUT IT ON!!! WEAR IT!!! And thus begins the slow slide to a completely different line of thought. Like the song says, it’s a slow fade when black and white can turn to gray. Don’t turn it to gray, stay strong when you shop!

Can you tell me where the closest burkha store is?

“Guys always notice, and whether girls know it or not, they get put into a category of what type of girl they are based on how they dress.”

- Anonymous 23 year old man on Modesty

This summer I helped out with a teen program for a Catholic family camp, and while cleaning up after one of the camp weeks, I chanced upon a copy of a long list. Upon examination, I noticed that it was a very long list of modesty quotes from guys to girls. I started reading it, but got really confused as some of the answers conflicted with each other. I saw statements written down anywhere from “transparent sleeves are a stumbling block” to “it is okay to show cleavage when wearing a swimsuit”. I showed it to some of my fellow female co-workers, and we managed to confuse ourselves more and more as we read this list, until we convinced ourselves that we had two options: either modesty was overrated and guys just needed to get a grip, or we all needed to start wearing burkhas.

Fortunately for me, and all women for that matter, neither of these are the case! We took this list to dinner that night and read it off to the four well-grounded guys who worked with us, drilling them for answers. They proceeded to tell us the following:

1) That we don’t need to wear burkhas! (phew!) BUT guys are really visually stimulated, and actually, skin showing is the biggest distraction for a man. Although we don’t need to drape cloth over our entire bodies and hide them from complete view, it’s still important to make sure that we don’t have too much skin showing, especially in our midriff and legs.

2) Cleavage can shoot down a man’s purity very, very quickly. Not that we have to wear turtlenecks all the time (although the guys claimed that they did find these flattering), but we shouldn’t think that plunging necklines and bared cleavage is okay. There’s no right or wrong in how much chest above the cleavage should be shown, but invent your own rule and stick with it!

3) Guys do treat girls differently who dress differently. Most good, Christian men will subconsciously be drawn to a woman who is more modestly dressed than one who is immodestly dressed. On the other hand, a boy with different motives will treat a modest woman a lot differently than he would allow his eyes to wander with an immodest woman. It’s a win/win situation for a woman who dresses modestly!

4) A girl can dress as modestly as she wants to, and still act immodestly. It can be a problem for a guy when a woman walks a certain way or moves her body in a suggestive manner. Dancing is a HUGE issue, because no matter how much clothes we have on, we might still lead a man astray if we’re out there in the dance floor “shakin’ that thang”.

There were a lot of other things we talked about that day in regards to modesty, but these were some of the biggies. These are little things that any girl can follow fairly easily without going out of her way too much. These days, layers are in, and it’s actually not all that impossible to find attractive, flattering clothes that don’t show to much skin and aren’t too tight. It might take a couple extra minutes of sifting through the clothing racks to find something we like, but we have to ask ourselves if a few less minutes of shopping is worth the moments of sin we might cause our brothers to fall into.

Why Am I Even Here In The First Place?

 "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service.  And be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God." 

- Romans 12;1-2

Growing up in a staunch Catholic family, the issue of modest dress has always been hammered into my head. Up until my 16th birthday, my dad laid down the law when it came to buying clothes, which meant (to my utter embarrassment) that t-shirts, skirts, and very loose jeans were acceptable and anything else was out of the question. Once I got “old enough” to “make my own decisions”, as my mother so nicely put it, I started to shop more according to trend and less according to my good ol’ Christian morals. Not that I dressed immodestly, but I let even the thought of it fly out the door and really didn’t care what my clothing choices reflected. That is, until I started to pay closer attention to what a sexually driven culture was doing to my brothers.

I have three younger brothers, each of them is very dear to my heart, and I would never want anything to happen to them. As they started to get older, I noticed myself becoming more protective of them. In today’s world, it is very easy for a young, hormonal, teenage guy to fall into the trap of impurity and learn to look at a girl as an object. I began to witness this slippery slope in my own home, and started to search for answers to the problem, coming back full circle to the issue of modesty.

With a little bit of research, and a lot of real life experiences, I was able to come to the conclusion that as Christian women, it is our God-given duty (for lack of a better word) to dress and act in a way that helps our Christian brothers grow closer to Christ. Women have no idea how much a little cleavage or skin can effect a guy, and not that I know either, but through a lot of poking around and asking, I’ve learned that it is so true. Not only should we choose to guard our dress out of respect for our brothers, but also because it has been proven time and time again that men will respect a woman who dresses and acts modestly a lot more than one who doesn’t.

This is my compilation of research and real life experiences. I hope to aid Christian men and women both in helping each other defeat the vicious circle that has enveloped our culture by providing encouragement in this area. Girls, remember that you are a beautiful woman of God, and men...treat us like we are. You won’t regret it!