undressing modest dress

An interesting article, with an interesting perspective.

I agree with the author's main point, which is: modesty comes from transcending concern about our appearance and our body. When we are truly modest, we don't worry about whether or skirt hits exactly at the knee (or at the ankle--whatever your personal modesty rules entail), nor do we concern ourselves that our shirts are too low or high or sleeves are too see-through or cut right. I believe that an undue concern with modesty rules is detrimental. What I believe many modest fashionistas have proved is that truly fashionable and stylish clothing is always modest. Focus on being a beautiful dresser, and you will be a modest dresser.

Also, modesty, as a fruit of the Holy Spirit, is automatically present when other virtues shine forth. Cultivate virtues such as love, courage, humility, purity, and prudence, and modesty will naturally follow.

Wingless Chickens

Flannery O'Connor about knocked my socks off with her letters. I'd read four or five of her short stories before coming to this book, and, while they were interesting enough, none of them really sparked my interest until we read "Everything that Rises Must Converge" for a seminar class last semester. The symbolism and wry humor intrigued me enough that I trotted down to the library and picked up, not her other works of fiction, but her collected letters. It was the greatest of fortune.

The book opens with letters written during her time in New England -- letters to her mother in Georgia, an exchange with Elizabeth McKee who became her agent. There wasn't anything particularly extraordinary or gripping in the first hundred pages or so. O'Connor's wry, biting humor, turned against herself as often as against others, definitely was there, and there was some talk of her writing and her thoughts on the literary figures and works of her day, but it wasn't until 1955 that the letters really began to pick up. Because, you see, in 1955 Betty Hester (known only as "A." in the collection; her identity was revealed after her death in 1998) wrote to Flannery, asking about her short story collection A Good Man is Hard to Find. Flannery's curiosity and interest were piqued from that very first letter. 

You were very kind to write to me and the measure of my appreciation must be to ask you to write again. I would like to know who this is who understands my stories. 

In the following letters, Flannery's delight with finding someone with whom she could engage in intellectual conversation as an equal is startlingly palpable. Letters to Hester form the bulk of the remaining collection, although not even all of these were included.

Reading her letters is to peep inside Flannery's head, and the portrait painted by the letters is extraordinarily life-like. Flannery's sense of humor, her impatience with sentimentalism, and her deep and tenacious faith all spring off the page with a fierce vivacity. After reading the nearly 600 pages of the book, I feel as though I know her, as arrogant and cliched as that may sound. Flannery wrote on a myriad of topics, informing friends of happenings on the farm (Flannery's mother kept cows and Flannery raised fowl of various kinds, including peacocks and swans), her reactions to books she'd read, tart commentary on goings-on in the world and not least of all, exasperation with the stubbornness of misinterpretation of her work. Her work is often (if not universally) labelled grotesque and "Southern Gothic" (whatever this may mean), and, not having read much of her writing, I feel disinclined to pass judgement on those labels. But, having read her own reflections on her work, I know that she saw herself as a sort of prophet (if I may use that term) to a world that had lost much of its sensibility of sin, its consciousness of the fallen state of man. She succinctly (and memorably) summarized this loss to Hester:

The moral sense has been bred out of certain sections of the population, like the wings have been bred off certain chickens to produce more white meat. This is a generation of wingless chickens, which I suppose is what Nietzsche meant when he said God was dead.

Her blunt forcefulness acted as a two-by-four to the head of a world that was losing, and in many ways had already lost, its ability to judge between good and evil. Flannery's writing is shocking in the way that smelling salts are shocking.

All is not a bitter crusade against evil and its minions, however, and Flannery is equally captivating when relating hilarious farm news or defending the Catholic faith to various correspondents. There are, of course others beside Hester, and I particularly enjoyed O'Connor's exchanges with Dr. T. R. Spivey, Cecil Dawkins and Maryat Lee. The last letter Flannery wrote, a short note to Lee, was found on her bedside table after her death and mailed by her mother. It refers to an anonymous phone call Lee had received, and counseled her to call the police, telling her that

cowards can be just as vicious as those who declare themselves -- more so. Don't take any romantic attitude toward that call. Be properly scared and go on doing what you have to do, but take the necessary precautions.

It seems a very O'Connoresque note to end on: don't take a romantic view of the situation, and do what you need to do without fuss or emotionalism. I get the feeling that this would have been her approach to death as well as nasty anonymous phone calls.


Obligatory bio-snippet: Flannery graduated from Georgia State College for Women (now Georgia College & State University) in 1945, then attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Flannery spent time in New England, both with friends and at the Yaddo artists' colony before being diagnosed with lupus in 1951. Other than excursions to give lectures and a pilgrimage to Lourdes (and stints in the hospital), O'Connor spent the rest of her life living with her mother Regina on their dairy farm, Andalusia, in Milledgeville, Georgia until her death on August 3, 1964 from lupus.

Dust unto Dust

The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark.

The men of the East may search the scrolls
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God
Go singing to their shame.

-- G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

Who Men Really Are

I am tired of hearing it drilled in to my gender that we will always struggle with lust, and that because we are visually stimulated we are doomed to always struggle with our eyes. Isn’t it much more likely (and more biblical) that any struggle with our eyes is first and foremost a struggle with the heart? Isn’t it possible to recognize a woman’s beauty at all levels and not wander into places in our heart that are out of bounds? 

This is NOT what is communicated, when we are sent the constant message that we are weak, lustful creatures, who need women to dress differently in order to protect us from our poor uncontrollable masculine responses. 

 Read the rest here.

Vulnerability on My Mind

Here is an article that I published on the Good Woman Project's website, discussing the role of vulnerability in love and relationships.

Love in a Modern World

First off, a refreshing defense of true love in a shallow, cynical culture by Fr. Longenecker.

Followed by a thought-provoking project, wherein Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano photoshops classic nude paintings, nipping the waistline and, ahem, augmenting the bust. More than a little depressing, no? Honestly, it surprised me how wrong the thinner versions looked, practically emaciated. So much for the modern standards of beauty.

Why is There So Much Pink?

Wishing you and yours a very tongue-in-cheek feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius.

Go Fr. Dailey!

Cope and Paste for a great defense of the Church's views on Contraception and Abortion:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/46351581#46351581

Windows into Eternity

Because Christ Pantocrator is one of my favorite icon subjects ever.

Auntie Seraphic Does It Again

Have we mentioned yet how much we love Auntie Seraphic? No? Well, on a scale of line-dried sheets to Jane Austen, she's right below Jane Austen. By that much.