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.