The Modesty Talk.

Every year at Moody all the girl on campus pile into the auditorium for something called "All Hall". This is the event where we "remind" everyone oh-so-gently about the dress code, modest behavior on campus and other such things. We talk about how we don't want to cause our brothers to stumble and we all make some variation of an inner vow to cover our cleavage better this year.

This tonight was different. Tonight, Dr. DeRosett, a professor in the Communications dept. and Stacie Parlee, a woman of God and the wife of Dr. Johnson a professor of Theology, came and spoke to us.

I've never heard anything like it.

Dr. DeRosett, who is now reaching into her finer years (was that tactful? I think not.. but it was a good effort in the direction of tact.) spoke to us about our need to be modest for our own sake. She said that women could wear a burlap bag and when their hips move men would still look. But that's not the point, because that's their business. She said we need to be modest out of self-respect. Not self-protection. Not self-hiding. Self-respect.

I've always heard at the countless youth group modesty talks that I need to 1) cover my body because it's private, 2) cover my body because boys will see it and fall into sin, and 3) cover my body because some day it will be the property of one man and I don't want to taint that. No one ever told me to be modest for me.

Then followed Mrs. Parlee. She presented a theology of nakedness. Now, up until tonight, I didn't know such a thing existed. Sure, I guess I would have nodded my head in profound agreement if you raised it in conversation, but that would just be to make you think I was well-refined and modern. I'm not. She preached from Genesis about the fall and how nakedness was no longer shame-less, but needed covering. So a bloody sacrifice was made and coverings were afforded. She insists the same is true today. Spiritually, we cover ourselves, or clothe ourselves, with the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He is our shame-removing covering. Why wouldn't we dress in such a way as to reflect that?

I think there's definitely something to chew on here tonight. Like, when was mistique removed from femeninity? When did we as women become okay with the top advertising scheme being not only sexuality but female sexuality? And remind me again why that is a feminist way of thinking?

Ahhh, it's going to be a good night of musings ...