Thursday, July 3, 2014

Modesty as the Language of Mutual Respect

From Jennifer Fitz:
It is normal and good to want to earn a decent living for your family.  It is vile to be consumed by greed.  It is normal and good to desire a large family.  It is vile to be consumed by envy.  It is normal and good for a woman to be attracted to a man who shows her kindness, respect, and admiration.  It is vile for her to abandon her husband in order to run off with such a man.  It is normal and good for a man to find a woman’s beauty riveting.  It is vile for him to be consumed with lust.

Somewhere in between perfect detachment and vile sin is the range of ordinary human weakness in which modesty operates.

If we were all perfectly detached from the goods of this world, we could with perfect equanimity rejoice when our friends feasted, with no regard for our own lack.  We could appreciate the kindness and beauty of others, with never a moment’s temptation towards impurity.  It would be Heaven.

Modesty is not the response to greed, envy, adultery and lust.  No amount of modesty can keep these sins from consuming the one who consents to them. (Read more.)
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