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Email a FriendPosted by Carolyn A on Friday, Jul 10, 2009 4:29 PM (EDT):
Excellent post with much food for thought. Modesty is SO much more than a dress code.
Beyond Hemlines
Do we really understand modesty?
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Faith on Friday, July 10, 2009 2:00 PM
A friend posted Don’t Wear That Mini to Mass on her Facebook page this morning.
It makes the case for appropriate dress at Mass in light-hearted fashion and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
However, happy as I am to see the flowering of articles and worthy apostolates attempting to reclaim some ground from the culture in the field of fashion, I wonder if part of the difficulty we have inculcating appropriateness in dress doesn’t spring from the fact that even Christians seem to have narrowed a broad virtue into a mere dress code.
Modesty in dress is only one facet of the broader virtue of modesty, which expresses our sense of the dignity of the human person in external things: not only dress, but also posture, gestures and public decorum. It is the external expression of humility.
In a lovely essay on this topic, Donald DeMarco writes:
The modest person is not interested in displaying his talents and attainments for people to admire. He even shuns making himself the subject of conversation. He is more eager to know what he needs to know than to parade what he already knows. He has a healthy sense of himself as he is and is less concerned about how others view him.
Well! That rather flies in the face of our Twitter & Facebook culture, doesn’t it—in which we’re all tempted to make ourselves the topic of conversation all the time?
Is it possible to be a modest blogger?
This is something I wrestle with a great deal in conscience. I have a blog-friend who likes to say, “I’m only Tweeting to tell you I’ve blogged.” He means by that to poke fun at the tendency of writers and bloggers to use the supposedly social networking sites as advertising venues—driving traffic to our latest posts and columns.
Maybe that is just good—even admirable—hustling for business? If you think your ideas are important don’t you want to spread them—for the sake of the ideas, the author being incidental? If you think you’re called to be a writer—or even if you’re merely employed as one—shouldn’t you work for as broad an audience as possible? If you make your living from your website wouldn’t you be a fool not to try to drive traffic there? You’re probably morally obligated to do so.
Or is the constant reference to our own product an example of immodesty?
I really don’t know and I point no fingers as my own sins (if sins they be) are scarlet in this regard. I simply suggest that the democratization of media—which is an overall good, I think—comes at the price of every person having to be his own advertising department. It’s hard to live the virtue of modesty—in which we focus on bringing the good into relief and let praise catch us genuinely by surprise—when we are busy touting our own books and performances on talk shows, issuing press releases singing our own praises and using our blogs to link to people linking back to us.
I’m not certain where the line is to be drawn in all this; what I am sure is that a culture built on attention-getting and self-promotion is never going to teach young people why that should be proper in every venue except the field of fashion.
What I love about DeMarco’s reflection is his highlighting of the loveliness of modesty when we encounter it.
modesty retains an unmatched power. It remains a diamond in the midst of zircons. “In the modesty of fearful duty,” wrote Shakespeare, “I read as much as from the rattling tongue of saucy and audacious eloquence.” When modesty speaks, its unvarnished eloquence presents that which is true, dependable, and genuine. Modesty is concerned with honesty, not deceit. Therefore, it has little patience with flattery and adulation. Nor is it inclined to exaggerate or boast.
The modest person is aware of his limitations and retains the capacity to blush. A person blushes when he is suddenly the object of praise or attention. It catches him off guard at a moment when he is interested in something other than himself.
Plus, even when it’s necessary, all that self-promotion gets tedious, doesn’t it? My grandfather once wrote a lengthy poem entitled “The Ballad of Immodesty.” It began thus:
Sing me not Marlowe’s praise, nor say that Shakespeare’s fine.
Why quote from Ovid’s lays about his Valentine?
Old words, unlike old wine
Grow stale and lose their tone
To use them I decline
I like to quote my own!
It goes on like that for some verses but ends on a note of self-awareness.
Friends, come with me to dine!
But be prepared to groan
To languish and repine—
I like to quote my own!
The essence of modesty is self-forgetfulness. When we recover that as a culture, then our kids will understand how to dress.
Comments
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Posted by Kathy on Friday, Jul 10, 2009 6:23 PM (EDT):
I enjoyed reading your post! I talk to my pre-teen daughters quite often about this and how the virtue of modesty covers so many issues. I think it’s very hard to learn modesty when everything around us is so over-exposed. Right now we are working on modesty in conversation after a recent issue that came up with some of their friends. Retaining some personal privacy is a good thing!
Posted by Kristyn Hall on Saturday, Jul 11, 2009 7:17 AM (EDT):
Yes, modesty is more than clothing, but a sick pervert is not going to leer at my daughter’s embellishment of her academic achievement. A young man isn’t going to fall into temptation after reading my Christmas newsletter with the family’s sundry accomplishments. We live in a sexually-driven culture and we owe it to the men around us, young and old, to keep ourselves clothed and in our right minds. We must be careful in taking the moral high ground here. I know young women who are not proud, do not wish to draw unnecessary attention, and are for all practical purposes in the intangible sense, “modest,” but I will not allow my family to sit behind them at Mass because we do not need to look at a butt crack while we worship. These poor girls need clear instruction about what to wear because left to themselves they buy whatever junk the stores sell… and right now you really have to TRY to find modest clothing. ‘Nuff said.
Posted by Kristin on Saturday, Jul 11, 2009 9:21 PM (EDT):
I like the clothes from Gymboree, Hannah Andersson, Lands End, and LL Bean for my girls. They are cute, youthful, age-appropriate, well-made clothes. They do not look like they came from the costume department on the set of Sex and The City like so many other girls’ clothes do.
Posted by gb on Saturday, Jul 11, 2009 8:34 AM (EDT):
“I’m only Tweeting to tell you I’ve blogged.”
Excellent way of saying this! To date, I’m a bit disappointed in the introspection that seems to be lacking in Catholic Cyberspace re: the issue you raise here. As in the area of female fashion, we seem to be adopting the view of the current corrupt culture regarding “broadcasting ourselves” at every possible opportunity. Where is the line that the Lord wants us to draw between networking & broadcasting?
Posted by Claire on Monday, Jul 13, 2009 12:37 AM (EDT):
I think this is a really interesting topic. I am not a blogger, just a blog-reader. One of the reasons I do not keep a blog myself is this very attention-seeking behavior you are talking about. I feel like it would consume me. One of the other reasons is that I do not have the courage to do so, because it really does involve a lot of courage!
I am a blog reader because I enjoy learning from other like-minded (and even not-at-all like-minded) people have to say about the faith, and about motherhood. The late Cardinal Van Thuan wrote (in “Testimony of Hope”) that one of Satan’s devices to distract us from doing good is to convince us that we are doing it for the wrong reasons; that we should not share the good things we have received because we are only doing so out of pride. He argues that gifts are meant to be shared, especially gifts of (spiritual) wisdom and insight.
Posted by Jeanne Grunert on Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 2:29 PM (EDT):
I recommend Wendy Shalit’s book, “A Return to Modesty”, for a great look at the whole topic.
Posted by dawn on Sunday, Jul 26, 2009 6:15 PM (EDT):
i agree, modesty is not just about what we wear but our whole lifestyle. However, the probable reason why it is the aspect so focused on is simply because it is the most noticeable!
I think maybe we should try to work on all aspects at the same time, if possible…
However, all people are different; for me, in discovering more about modesty, it was more about the dress side of the matter that drew me in first, and then the other aspects of where you go, what you do, who you’re with, humility etc. just fell into place; for others it might be the complete opposite.
Ave Maria
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