Standing Out or Blending in: Modesty in An Era Where Modesty Stands Out

I just finished reading an article on modesty that left me with thought swirling around in my head, and I'm writing now to try to make sense of them.  These thoughts range through a number of topics, beginning with modesty and trailing off into education, what my house looks like and how I live my life on a day to day basis.  I've read words, that sum up a way of thinking that always makes me feel a bit awkward and self conscious, and now I'll try to put them into my own words and respond, although I'm opting not to go searching for the articles and comments, which are more often than not written by people who I really like and respect, but can't help but disagree with on this one particular topic.

It goes something like this:  Yes we're Catholic, but that doesn't mean we have to look or behave or have homes that are different than everyone else.  A home that "looks like someone robbed a Church" makes me uncomfortable.  Wearing long dresses and long sleeves is immodest, because you stand out and modesty is all about not standing out.  I can't stand books or curriculum that is filled with Catholic traditions, because everything doesn't have to scream that it's Catholic to be good and if is overly Catholic (referring usually to fiction here) it's not all that good.

There are parts that I agree with.  I don't think a book has to be Catholic to be good.  I'd say that majority of my favorite books are classics, and while they may touch on Catholicism since it was such a huge part of life in the particular cultures they were written in when they were written, they aren't books about Catholicism.  However, I can't help but disagree about taking the next step and saying that modern fiction that portrays our faith is then inherently lacking.

When I write, even fiction (especially fiction?), my faith comes bubbling up, and overflows onto the page.  This is a theme that's been common through my life.  When I was depressed in college that sorrow overflowed and bled through my words.  When I was an agnostic moral relativist those questions I had about the universe and how we could never really know what was right or wrong and the best we could do was blunder along and try not to hurt anyone else, managed to set the tone on nearly every page.

And now I am Catholic and, inevitably, my faith and life, will overflow into my work.  To try to stifle that would, in effect, stop the words.  

Of course, it doesn't stop on the written page.  I am Catholic.  That reality, that belief in a God who made the ultimate sacrifice and who calls us all to follow him, to take the narrow path and pick ourselves up when we fall and cast ourselves on his mercy again and again, influences every other part of my life.

It means that when I decorate my home, the things that are important to me are prominent, which means that maybe it does look like I robbed a Church.  To be honest, it really actually does.  Before we left California our parish sold one of it's mission Churches after it stood empty for years, and a load of artwork was stacked on a table one day after morning mass, awaiting an uncertain fate.  The priest asked us if we wanted anything and I told Paul to pick for us while I worked in the office... when I returned our car was overflowing with artwork.

And I love the way it looks.  I love the giant Last Supper that I never would have claimed on my own, that Paul has carefully packed from California to Florida to Michigan.  I love the Sacred Heart of Jesus painting, with such gentle eyes, that Sadie ran up to earlier this week as I tried to decide on a spot to hang it, yelling:  "My husband!  My husband!" before gently kissing the painting and then worrying aloud about how high I would hang it so "Maggie doesn't hurt my husband!"

I'm sorry if the way my home looks makes some people uncomfortable because they "can't stand that type of house" but then, they don't have to live here.  I'm less of a fan of modern design and furniture, but that doesn't mean I go around blathering about how it "makes me uncomfortable."  It doesn't make me uncomfortable, because the idea of someone else having taste that is different from mine is perfectly normal.

A goal of mine is to someday have a crucifix in every room of our home.  I'm collecting them slowly as we find them.  We have two beautiful holy water fonts (awesome for night time blessings which makes little ones who have nightmares feel safer) I've packed along too.  And I love the look of those old, finely framed copies of master pieces that have dotted the walls of our various homes, making it feel like home as we've traveled from place to place.

I love that these old pictures mean that our children talk about the saints that they see in them like they're old family members.

Naturally, my faith has overflowed into the way I dress.

It may not fit our modern culture, although I feel my style fits here in Michigan, more than it's fit anywhere else.  I see women in skirts and headcoverings every time I leave the house and I find myself far less traditionally dressed than many of the women I pass in the grocery store or on the street.  And no, I don't think anyone has thought I was Muslim or Amish (which I have been asked here in the past) because honestly, we dress differently as a result of culture, and thus have different results in our search for modest dress.

Then again, I've never been a fashionista. I certainly tried a time or two, but my natural nerdy-geekiness has meant that I've always stood out as "different" in one way or another, in a culture that so often values uniformity.  And I'm at a point in my life where when readers occasionally tell me that now "my husband is so glad I don't look like you" (that was a while back and it still makes me laugh, because seriously, who writes things like that?), it rolls of my back.

Today Paul brought me home a brand new jacket.  He found it on clearance at Walmart for $19.99 and bought it for me.  He doesn't know that for the past few weeks I've been staring at my jacket, embarrassed by how tattered it had come to look after six years of wear and tear.  The fabric had looked worn for a while now as it had survived being spit up on and tugged at by six babies, and while I was mentally preparing to re-secure the buttons, nothing was going to make it look nice and neat and even vaguely fashionable ever again.  I was thrilled with the neat, simple black dress coat that he found.  "The fabric!"  I said as I buttoned it and stood in the kitchen, "The fabric looks so new!"  

I'll be wearing it with my longer than average skirts, not looking like I stepped off the runway.  I probably will fit the bill of "immodest" dress, as stated by certain bloggers who really wish we'd all just look exactly the same and stop insisting that certain body parts might be better up not shown to everyone on God's green earth (while simultaneously saying it's immodest to even speak of such things and the topic should just be banned), with the pieces I'll fit together from what I have in my closet.  I have neither the money, nor the desire to go chasing after being just like everyone else at this point in my life.

And to be honest, I don't go around judging other outfits by some imagined standard of "modest."  I just try to keep particular body parts covered, loosely enough that you can tell I'm a lady, but fitted so you can still tell I'm a woman (as the saying goes), and try to keep the toddler from stripping down and running around in a diaper while climbing store displays and that keeps me plenty busy without worrying about what anyone else is doing.

Yet I do think that discussing modesty can be helpful and shouldn't quite be a "banned topic" since I've certainly appreciated having help along the way as I went from mini skirts and teeny tank tops to something with a bit more fabric.

I guess in the end it just seems odd to me to be told true modesty is following the crowd, because you can't be modest if you stand out.

If we follow Christ, we're going to stand out.  We're supposed to.  We need to be a light to the world.  The instructions to be in the world, but not of the world, keep echoing in my ears.  When we strive to follow Christ in our lives, it's likely going mean we look different than the cultural average, in our words and speech, in our dress and in the way our homes look and run.  What we hold as important is going to be different than the status quo.  That's just how it is.  The lover seeks to draw close and be more like the one that he loves.  And when we let that love in it changes every aspect of our lives and eviscerates much of what we thought was important.  The love that overflows from our hearts is going to transform our corner of the world.  And that isn't going to leave us blending in with everyone else.  He never intended it to.