I tell you that in order to say that I would consider myself well schooled in what American culture has told us is beautiful. We got it in spades in So Cal (no! not "Cali"... no one should call it "Cali").
But one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen in real life was not from southern California. She was a homeless girl living on the streets of Chicago. An African American girl, average height, who walked up and down the streets of Chicago Avenue my first year living in Chicago. And she was absolutely beautiful. Once you looked past the torn clothes and looked into her eyes you could see that she would be (in any other context) the most beautiful girl in any room. And her voice... She had a voice that could put angry bulldogs to sleep. Sure she was screaming obsenities and telling my friends and I how we had all kinds of immorally transmitted diseases, but the way she said it... there was poetry. It was a voice that could coax all your muscles to relax.
We would see her often as we walked up and down Chicago Avenue, looking for some Dunkin Donuts coffee or questionable Indian food late at night. But my last interaction with her (the last time I remember seeing her) stands out in my mind more than any other. We had passed her once going to a restaurant, she asked us for money, when we told her we didn't have any cash on us she rhythmically explained to us her feelings about the matter and we walked away awkwardly.
On our way back from the restaurant it was just my friend Mark and I. We saw her a ways off in the distance. I wondered if she would remember us or ask us again for money on our second pass. She made eye contact with me and I knew I was in for another tongue lashing from the siren. She was crouched against a wall, squatting in the cold February air, trying to block herself from the bitter wind that blows through the city all through the winter. As I neared her she didn't move. She just sat there with eyes locked on me. Not wanting to be too rude I made eye contact and smiled. She asked me if I had a cigarette or a light. I told her I carried neither. She seemed disheartened by the news but was unwilling to budge. I began walking past her path and noticed why she wasn't moving... a single stream of liquid ran from where she was sitting down the sidewalk, overflowing into the gutter. She was peeing in public on a busy street, right in front of me!!! With cat like reflexes and agility I flew over the stream and dodged the liquid before me. Mark was not so lucky and got a sole full of urine on his left foot before he was lucky enough to realize what was happening. In horror he noticed just a few seconds too late and took off running and I followed, laughing at:
1) Mark's shoe full of pee
2) at the idea that this girl was unashamedly urinating in public.
Of course I told everyone I knew about it, and logged it in my memory bank as one of those "only in Chicago" kinds of stories. Its all about the memories.
Years later I still think back on that girl. I think about how beautiful she was. I think about how that beauty was countered by vile language and... well... her peeing on a busy street! And it made me think about this idea of beauty and what it truly is. My life in California showed me that true lasting beauty wasn't in string bikinis or meticulously applied make-up. My time in Chicago showed me that it wasn't in the beautiful face or musical voice of any woman. There is something more.
When discussing this topic there are many tripwires in peoples' brains. And rightfully there should be. Me writing about modesty should come as very humorous to some because of the amount of time I have spent mocking other males who have put so much time expounding on the subject. As a Christian I've heard numerous sermons and speeches about modesty from men who are telling women why they should be modest. I do feel a little cynicism at the very idea of being a guy telling women how to dress. I feel even more cynicism about it because I'm a single guy who has a hard enough time dressing myself daily without sticking my nose into telling girls how they should dress. My problem is I'm convinced that most people who have expounded on the subject have been very VERY wrong in their approach. So I am throwing my two cents in about what true beauty is and the motivations behind modesty.
A lot of people I have heard or read have operated on guilt and fear to inspire modesty. "Christian girls, you should be modest because if you dress too attractively you will make men stumble and fall into tempation and it will be all your fault and no one will every truly love you for you and food won't taste as good and you'll never get a loan for your future house, etc." The message women receive is that men are perverts and the only thing keeping them from total sin and evil is the length of their skirt. That's not the right reason to be modest. Fear is never the right reason for holiness.
True, the Bible does tell us that we are to avoid making a fellow Christian stumble. We should avoid that at all costs as we are able. But that is never the greatest motivator for holiness.
If we're being totally honest here lets just lay it all on the table and call a spade a spade. An attractive girl is still going to be attractive whether she is wearing a bikini or a burlap sack. There is little you can do about it*****. When you dress in the morning the question should not be "is this going to make a guy think about sex?" The question that should be asked, the true motivation for modest is much deeper and profound.
Woman considering how they dress (or I should say, how they live) should not be based off of fear which is a temporal motivation that fades with age and impulse. Modesty isn't a concept for this life, you don't stop being modest because you die. Modesty comes from an eternal principle of beauty.
All women in Heaven will be modest. Now, calm your cynicism! My point is the eternal nature of modesty, which is a state of mind and understanding of one's own identity, not solely based on whether or not a person keeps all their flesh covered. Modest is a heart issue, not an accentuation of curves issue. When Christ returns and gives us glorified bodies those will be bodies that are presented modestly, not for fear of making others sin (there will be no sin! Lord let that day come soon!), or an attempt to present a false, denim skirt enduced piety, but from a proper understanding of what true beauty is.
You want to know what is beautiful? You want to know about enduring beauty that lasts beyond age, style, gravity, cultural savy, and death? What is truly beautiful is the transforming work of Christ in a person's life. A beautiful girl is a girl who knows that her identity is found in Christ's death and resurrection and has confidence in His love. She is content in Christ for validation. She does not need guys drooling over her, and she does not need to flaunt her measurements or show skin. She is content and secure in Christ, not needing a thousand peering eyes to validate what Christ has been trying to help her understand her whole life: she is beautiful because of the work of the cross and her humble submission to it.
I want to avoid the response that is (history nerd coming out here) coming from our culture's fear/hurt caused by the fundamentalist movement. People will read this and think I'm saying that true women don't need or shouldn't want men or something bizarre like that. I'm not saying a truly modest woman is free from the love or validation a loving husband provides. Modest woman are not hyper feminists who spurn the love and affection of men. They aren't nuns. Truly beautiful women know that their beauty comes from Christ first and they strives to honor Him in the way they present themselves. They dress to honor and worship Jesus who has died for their sins, cleansing them from unrighteousness, and raising them into new life. They stand in the mirror and ask "what does how I look say about Christ in me?"
Beauty is knowing who you are in Christ and letting Him be what makes you beautiful. That does not mean a beautiful woman rejects the affections of a boyfriend/husband. I'm not trying to pull a Hamlet here and telling Ophilia to "get thee to a nunnery." A woman of true beauty seeks a husband who loves and admires a woman who love God and has submits herself to Him. She looks for a man that encourages true beauty, and knows that that accentuates physical beauty. She will not settle for mere physical validation and lust, but waits for a man that loves her for who Christ is in her and pushes her towards holiness, not away from it.
Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, but in the transforming work of Christ. That is where the motivation for modesty should come from. That is eternal lasting modesty.
*many friends who grew up in other states and came here to visit have told me that exact thing.
**my second blog post to reference Spartan culture... this may be a theme.
*** by that I mean they probably move to Florida or something.
****i don't recommend this. I don't have too much advice to offer men about the fairer sex, but I can tell you that they don't care for having rocks thrown at them. There are other, more subtle and less harmful forms of flirting.
*****I don't say that to make wearing a bikini permissible, but to say that beautiful girls are beautiful girls and men are going to be attracted to them. So keeping a guy from being attracted to you is not the goal. The goal is holiness, not being less attractive.
