If this is pride, it's a funny way to go about it

Today I had to go to Lowe's, even though the kids and I are still sick, and the last thing I want is for them to get their gooey little hands all over a germy shopping cart. But my special order stain was in, and since this door job we're trying to do is more than three months overdue, I had to stuff everybody in the van and just go do it.

BUT before I could leave the house, I had to find a top/skirt/shoe/coat combo that would work with the weather and with my own ego. As I struggled with my closet on this, I had to ask myself (again) just why I am going through this. What is so wrong with just throwing on some jeans? It's not like there's anybody at Lowe's who gives a darn about what they're wearing (Lowe's is a lot like Wal-Mart in that respect). And I don't want to look like I'm headed to church. But it's hard to go casual in a skirt, especially in November. I wanted to look modest (thus the skirt) but also sporty and Northwest-y enough to "pass muster" with the fashion critics lodged in my head.

Was I falling victim to pride? I thought about it...and concluded that while my own desire to achieve a certain "look" was probably prideful, it would have been just as prideful to throw on the jeans and then smirk at everybody in the store who didn't look as "put together" as I did, or whose butts looked bigger in their pants, or whatever. I discovered that there's always pride, no matter what we're wearing. If anything, wearing the skirt humbles me because I can't be all that my ego wants, being constrained by the modesty standards.

But it made me think again about this whole issue of pride, and whether dressing according to modesty principles is "prideful" because dressing differently tends to attract attention.

This is, perhaps, the biggest reason why Christians don't adopt more conservative dress. Some do, and I'm not trying to exclude them. But for many people in the pews, the last thing they want to do is stick out in the crowd. Part of it is human nature. Heck, even animals try to blend in with their environment--it's a form of self-defense for them, and for us, too. However much we proclaim that we have a "free" country and that people can do whatever they want to do, it's the rare person that swims upstream in the way they dress. For some, this may be a source of pride, particularly if done in a rebellious spirit...like the first hippies who wore their hair long, or when women burned their bras. Their flinging off of social mores in dress was done to attract attention, to make a statement, and to send out a big Boston raspberry to the establishment.

But now our society is full of "hippies" who think they are swimming upstream by their way-out modes of dress, so the image has become rather commonplace. And I would say that the last thing this new hippie generation is doing by their dress is making a statement, political or otherwise. They are just trying to fit in with a particular group that they feel best represents their beliefs and opinions. And there's really nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't accuse them of pride at all, even if they felt "proud" of their particular group. It's OK to have pride in who you are. Some people, like Erykah Badu--who often wears a very large and very distinctive African headdress--wear garments that remind themselves (and others) of their roots, and there's no sin in that. Many Americans, out of political correctness, would fall all over themselves to welcome such people and make them feel comfortable, because we've been told that they have a right to express themselves.

What then, are we to think about those among us who adopt a distinctive dress because of religion? Are they way-out? Are they motivated by rebelliousness, or pride? On the contrary, whenever I see a Muslim man in a turban or a woman in a hijab, the last thing I think they are doing is being prideful. In some countries where certain religions are persecuted, people may not even be able to wear distinctive religious garments. We should be glad that Muslims are free to wear what they want.

Some Orthodox Jewish women practice a form of modesty called tznius, which is very strict and regulated. They delineate which areas of the woman's actual bone structure are to be covered or uncovered. Granted, it may not exactly be popular in this country, but is there a big outcry over it? No, the woman's beliefs are simply accepted, because she has a right to express her culture and her religion, and the last thing anybody wants to be accused of is anti-Semitism. Even the babushka ladies at the grocery store remind us that there are many eastern cultures that are making their home here in the United States, and we have a duty to be hospitable and welcoming to these new immigrants.

So now we come to that great silent religion, Christianity. We are the only religion that cannot express ourselves through dress without some form of persecution. But, oddly enough, the persecution tends to come from fellow Christians. Early on in the Reformation, "clerical" garb was quickly discarded by the reformers, because it smacked of Catholicism. Priests and religious have always made easy targets because of the way they dress. Even today, laws that punish religious garb--especially that of Catholics--are in effect or on the table in France and India. And do you think that, left to themselves, they would have wanted it that way? Probably not. There may be nothing harder to bear in the life of a priest than the constant stares, comments, and inevitable questions that arise because of his Roman collar.

Obviously there is a great good in the distinctive dress of priests and religious, as there is in celibacy, or the Church would not have decreed it. For some, the sight of a man or woman of God gives them great comfort and hope, even if they are not Christian. At least there is a person who stands up for what he or she believes and is available to others' needs, as it says in the Gospel. While Blessed Mother Theresa may have adopted her plain white sari because it was common, and poor, it has become the uniform of an army--her Missionaries of Charity. When a poor person looks up out of a gutter and sees that white sari, he sees Mother--and when he sees her, he sees the hand of God.

And I don't think that a laywoman of the Church who gradually transitions her wardrobe over to skirts, jumpers, and dresses is going to incite a lot of turmoil in other people's hearts. Despite Gospel ideals, human nature drives people to be far more concerned about themselves than they ever would be about somebody else's minute details of dress. If guys in the NFL can have dreadlocks cascading out of their helmets, it should not be a violation of anybody else's sensibilities if I put on a wool plaid skirt and go out into the rain.

Is dressing "differently," then, a prideful act? As I hope I have already proved, it can be if done in an in-your-face way, or for specious reasons. Or it can be one of the most humbling things you can do. I don't think anybody who wears offbeat dress for a well-thought-out reason is acting out of deadly sin-type pride. It can be just as dangerous to your soul to "blend in." You could make the argument that those who run to keep up with the latest fashion are falling victim to pride. You could say that aging women who dye their hair and teeth and wear lots of makeup are falling prey to pride. What about people who go to such great lengths to achieve and keep a perfect body? What about people who drive Hummers? Once you start pointing that finger, there is no end to it. The truth is that we are all battling pride in some form or another. And there is no telling, just by looking, who it is. I think the most dangerous thing we can do is second-guess people's motives for how they dress or act. We just don't know.

And when it comes to various stripes of Christian who are struggling to bring back more conservative and graceful modes of dress, in line with their own cultures and religious heritage--they should be encouraged rather than criticized. We may be a small minority, and our form of dress may not be everybody's cup of tea, but we are within our rights in this country, and we should use them while we have them, lest even what we have be taken away.