There's a girl at my church. Let's call her Harper. She wears the most shockingly inappropriate clothing. Short skirts? I mean, take your breath away short. Eye-poppingly short. Skirts that make me feel old and fussy. Low cut tops too. Don't get me wrong -- her clothes are not cheap. They're not daisy-dukes and halter tops, not ratty, not dirty, but they're the kind of cut and style that make the grannies cluck their tongues and shake their heads, especially when she sits at the communion rail.

Harper is fourteen. She is the sweetest, most soft-spoken, polite, loving child. Every Sunday she's upstairs helping out in the pre-K Sunday School class, crawling around on the floor picking up blocks and playdoh crumbs, and doling out lemonade and graham crackers. Then she goes and sits with her family in church, sings the hymns, says the prayers. Afterwards she helps out with the coffee hour, serving snacks, ladling punch, wiping up tables. On one occasion I remember her coming in with two plates of pigs in a blanket she had made at home, which she nervously heated in the microwave and served anxiously -- they were gone in minutes and she was flushed and pleased.

Are her skirts too short for church? Yes. I have seen her many times sitting on the floor with the toddlers, and found myself thinking she was about a centimeter away from total embarrassment. But I would rather cut out my tongue than tell her she's out of line in any way. She's a teenager who's cheerfully, actively involved in church. In my opinion, if she wants to come in a swimming suit, I'm fine with that. Her parents are lovely people. Active volunteers, happy, smart, very normal-looking. I don't know what their feelings are about their daughter's skirts. I would guess they're happy to have her sitting next to them in the pew. I know I would be. She's one of my favorite parishioners.

Last week, the Carnival of Homeschooling was hosted by a blog called A Pondering Heart (not for children -- there are violent images on the front page, as of April 12 anyway). The author of the blog is another young girl, Jocelyn, who is also active in her church. Jocelyn is very concerned with modesty. She is the founder of Feelin' Feminine, a group blog about modesty and against pants (again be warned, the image on the front page of this blog is ironically not child-safe). She has also written a modesty checklist, which she instructs other girls to print out and hang by their mirrors. She even made the graphics for the Carnival of Modesty! She is, like, totally modest. Jocelyn believes that she is called to admonish her sisters in Christ, and that what others might see as judgmental she feels is necessary.

Hosting a carnival is kind of like throwing open the doors of your blog and asking people to come in and look around. Clicking around in A Pondering Heart, my first reaction was that Jocelyn was just another obsessed teenager, and that it was kind of cute. Some girls are obsessed with Twilight. Some throw themselves into horses. This is a child who has let her passions run wild in the direction of religion, specifically modesty and what she perceives as chaste behavior. One has only to read her post about purging herself of all her Lord of the Rings paraphernalia to recognize the signs of the obsessed teenaged girl. So, as long as her parents don't take her too seriously, and she doesn't make any decisions she can't take back when she grows up, where's the harm? Yeah, it's all a little crazy (Example: A woman with short hair is a cross-dresser!) When I was her age, I wanted to be a professional horse trainer. I *really* believed in it too. Teenaged girls take things to extreme. More to be pitied than censured. She'll grow out of it, etc.

However, I started thinking about my friend Harper from church, and about all the earnest, sweet-tempered energy she brings with her on Sunday morning, along with her questionable hemline and sleeveless dresses. How ridiculous it would be to tell her she's "encouraging lust" or to tell her that her actions are not "pleasing to God" because of the cut of her skirt. That made me think that Jocelyn's message is not so innocuous. I certainly wouldn't want her preaching to Harper, making her feel like she wasn't welcome in her Father's house. A few verses for Jocelyn and the modesty carnival:

Matthew 7:20 So then, you will know them by their fruits.

Matthew 12:33 Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.

Luke 6:44 For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush.

James 3:12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.

What do you think? Does Jocelyn have a good point? After all, we've all complained about the slutwear available in stores for elementary age children. Or, is this modesty movement sending a dangerous message to our children, placing such significance on all these external signifiers to express piety? The people who argue that women in African tribes go topless because they are "heathen" are preaching the same doctrine as the devout Muslims who believe that women must be covered up -- does that make the Muslims less heathen then?

In my opinion, your actions are what matters. Your appearance means nothing. If you believe in a God that made the world and is older than eternity, who has seen every age, every culture, every way that humans have clothed themselves since the monkeys came down out of the trees, do you really think He's measuring skirts, here in 2009, and judging some people unworthy based on a matter of a number of inches above or below the knee? It's silly.

Beyond that, it's a way to tear people down, another way to set an invisible bar so high that no one can ever be good enough. Jocelyn herself, self-appointed admonisher of her sisterhood, is constantly agonizing over whether she's modest enough, whether she's pure enough, if it's okay to wear this much makeup or is only that much okay, if a shirt should be this tight or that loose... etc. Unlike other teenage obsessions like writing comics or dancing ballet or stalking Robert Pattinson, this one makes little girls afraid for their immortal souls. You can never be absolutely modest, because modesty is so undefined. So you are always reaching, and always falling short. And that is actually not silly but wrong.

Labels: homeschooling, modest swimwear, modesty, religion