Restoring Dignity by John G. Banks, C.A.S.
In dealing with those individuals from addiction, codependency & other dysfunctional behaviors, a common thread runs thru each story I hear. These people give up &
give in. This behavior eventually leads to
loss of personal dignity.
Each person performs & puts on an act, while hiding & wearing an assortment of masks. They continue to hope that no one will find out how they deal with life & reality, their lives become a struggle.
Loosing one’s dignity isn't an
over night quest. Year after year, they practice until this loss of dignity occurs. The result is
simple; loss of respect joined with a low self-worth. When we focus our attention of actions, thoughts & feelings of another human being, we are positioning ourselves to receive Gods’ punishment for disobedience.
In looking at the book of Leviticus, we see how the book of laws has a distinctive meaning to those people that have
chose to turn their back on God. God has promised to strip us of our dignity if we aren't obedient.
Leviticus: 26:16: "I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption & the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes & cause sorrow of heart: & ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it".
These are the types of people that I meet on a daily basis. Spiritually bankrupt, homeless, addicted to alcohol or drugs, their lives are out of control. They're blinded by self will run riot & there's no meaning to their lives. The choices they had made to turn disobedient & allow substances
& other people to control their lives led them to annihilation.
How do you deal with a person who by their own decisions has ruined their life & the lives of those who love them? The answer is simple: become obedient & He will restore your dignity.
This simple solution becomes perplexing when someone has spent a lifetime of self-control & their own sense of willpower to suddenly come to the realization that God’s will & His grace
are the way out.
The majority adopts this process, but it only lasts for a few days until some self-conscious feelings leave & suddenly, the person is back in control & heading towards discouragement. The person quickly overlooks the pain, suffering & devastation that occurred just a few days before the relief was sent from God.
Titus 1:15-16: "Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled & unbelieving is nothing
pure; but even their mind & conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable & disobedient & unto every good work reprobate".
In fact, both their minds & consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions, they deny him. They're detestable, disobedient & unfit for doing anything good. As this person heads back down the
path they just left, what can we do as believers to change their course & provide structure in their lives?
We model the things they lack & keep modeling them until they realize what it is they need to do to recover.
Peter (The First Epistle of) 2:1-3: "Wherefore laying aside all malice & all guile & hypocrisies &
envies & all evil speakings; As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye tasted that the Lord is gracious."
People in recovery are just like newborn babies. They have to learn to walk, talk & behave appropriately just like a child. Addiction & dysfunctional behaviors stunt emotional growth. I see grown men
& women acting as if they were still in teenager years. Working a program of recovery such as suggested by 12-step models helps restore
dignity while providing a method to enhance emotional stability.
Corinthians (The Second Epistle of) 4:1-2: "Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy,
we faint not; But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God."
For some of us with major issues suppressed by our addiction & loss of control, lack of dignity plays a significant role in our lives. Not being able to look at ourselves
in the mirror or having someone look in your eyes with no one looking back is the definition of loss of dignity.
God helps us restore that dignity from the inside out. It's a tearing down of walls & denial that allows the dignity to
return to the lost soul."
May I suggest that if you know someone or have a problem with addiction or other dysfunctional behaviors, it may be worth your efforts to look into a 12-step recovery program. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop the loss
of dignity that someone or you may have suffered.
Currently we have 11 meetings, 7 days a week, located at the church. My ministry includes those who have serious &
sometimes life threatening problems.
The hours are long; the rewards are few & far between.
It's the miracles that keep me focused on my own purpose. Watching someone grow from a newborn to a mature
adult is one of God’s miracles that I experience on a daily basis.
Over the past 10 years, I've devoted my life to recovery. My philosophy is simple: I don't look down on anyone unless I'm going to help him or her up. When I made a decision to change my life & started my search, I was grateful that someone was there for me.
This person told me that I had lost
my dignity & he knew a way that it could be restored.
I listened, I believed, I found it! I found out the hard way that thru God all things are possible.
John G. Banks, is a Certified Addiction Specialist,
(C.A.S.) and Administrator for Family Recovery thru Education & Empowerment (FREE) in Visalia, California.
Discipline With Dignity by Richard Curwin & Allen Mendler
Now more than ever we must take a good look at what we're teaching our children by the way we treat them. Controlling their behavior is simply not enough. We must help them become decision makers & critical thinkers. We must help them feel that they can contribute to society & we must enhance their joy for learning.
''Discipline with Dignity'' was written to achieve these goals.
School is a battleground for many teachers & students. Why is there so much contention?
Much has been written about discipline over the years & many programs & methods have been tried & retried
with new names. The issue will always be an integral part of school because students will always learn more than the content
of the curriculum.
They'll learn about their behavior, their choices & their impact on others. Instead of trying to solve the discipline
problem, it might be wiser to try to positively affect the lives of children. We strongly advocate a model of discipline based on a positive value system &
suggest many practical methods to implement such a system in the classroom.
There are many factors that contribute to discipline problems in school, including family instability, violence in society,
confused values, lack of positive self-concepts, powerlessness, boredom & unclear limits.
Still, schools can & do influence student behavior & achievement.
Giving Dignity to Life
by Bhikkhu Bodhi
To ask what it means to live with dignity may sound strange in an age like our own, when our frantic struggle to make ends meet hardly allows us the leisure to ponder such weighty matters.
But if we do pause a moment
to give this question a little thought, we'd realize soon enough that it's not merely the idle musing of someone with too much time on his hands.
The question not only touches on the very meaning of our lives, but goes even beyond our personal quest for meaning
to bore into the very springs of contemporary culture. For if it isn't possible to live with dignity then
life has no transcendent purpose & in such a case our only aim in the brief time allotted to us should be to snatch whatever
thrills we can before the lights go off for good.
But if we can give sense to the idea of living with dignity, then we need to consider whether we're actually ordering our lives in the way we should & even more broadly, whether
our culture encourages a dignified lifestyle.
Though the idea of dignity seems simple enough at first sight, it's actually fairly complex. My
Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (1936!) defines dignity as "elevation of character,
intrinsic worth, excellence,...
nobleness of manner, aspect, or style." My Roget's Thesaurus (1977) groups it with "prestige, esteem,
repute, honor, glory, renown, fame" - evidence that over the last 40 years the word's epicenter of meaning has undergone a
shift.
When we inquire about living with dignity, our focus should be on the word's older nuance. What
I have in mind is living with the conviction that one's life has intrinsic worth,
that we possess a potential for moral excellence that resonates with the rhythm of the seasons & the silent hymn of the galaxies.
The conscious pursuit of dignity doesn't enjoy much popularity these days, having been crowded out by
such stiff competitors as wealth & power, success & fame.
Behind this devaluation of dignity lies a series of developments in Western thought that emerged in reaction to the dogmatic certainties of Christian theology.
The Darwinian theory of evolution, Freud's thesis of the Id, economic determinism, the computer model of the mind: all these trends, arisen more or less independently, have worked together to undermine the
notion that our lives have any more worth than the value of our bank accounts.
When so many self-assured voices speak to
the contrary, we no longer feel justified in viewing ourselves as the crowning glory of creation. Instead we have become convinced we're nothing but packets
of protoplasm governed by selfish genes, clever monkeys with college degrees & business cards plying across highways rather than trees.
Such ideas, in however distorted a form, have seeped down from the halls of academia into popular culture, eroding our
sense of human dignity on many fronts. The free-market economy, the task master of the modern
social order, leads the way.
For this system the primary form of human interaction is the investment & the sale, with people themselves reckoned
simply as producers & consumers, sometimes even as commodities. Our vast impersonal democracies reduce the individual
to a nameless face in the crowd, to be manipulated by slogans, images & promises into voting this way or that.
Cities have expanded into sprawling urban jungles, dirty & dangerous, whose dazed occupants seek an easy escape
with the help of drugs & loveless sex. Escalation in crime, political corruption, upheavals in family life, the despoliation of the environment: these
all speak to us as much of a deterioration in how we regard ourselves as in how we relate to others.
Amidst these pangs of forlorn hope, can the Dhamma help us recover our lost sense of dignity & thereby give new meaning to our lives? The answer to this question
is yes & in two ways: first, by justifying our claim to innate dignity & second, by showing us what we must do to actualize our potential dignity.
For Buddhism the innate dignity of human beings doesn't stem from our relationship to an all-mighty
God or our endowment with an immortal soul. It stems, rather, from the exalted place of human life in the broad expanse of
sentient existence. Far from reducing human beings to children of chance, the Buddha teaches that the human realm is a very
special realm standing squarely at the spiritual center of the cosmos.
What makes human life so special is that human beings have a capacity for moral choice that isn't shared
by other types of beings. Though this capacity is inevitably subject to limiting conditions, we always possess, in the immediate present, a margin of inner
freedom that allows us to change ourselves & hereby to change the world.
But life in the human realm is far from cozy. To the contrary, it's inconceivably difficult & complex, rife with conflicts & moral ambiguities offering enormous potential for both good & evil. This moral complexity can make
of human life a painful struggle indeed, but it also renders the human realm the most fertile ground for sowing the seeds
of enlightenment.
It's at this tauntingly ambiguous crossroads in the long journey of being that we can either rise to the heights of spiritual greatness or fall to degrading depths. The two alternatives branch out from each present moment & which one we take depends on ourselves.
While this unique capacity for moral choice & spiritual awakening confers intrinsic dignity on human
life, the Buddha doesn't emphasize this so much as he does our ability to acquire active dignity. This
ability is summed up by a word that lends its flavor to the entire teaching, ariya or noble.
The Buddha's teaching is the ariyadhamma, the noble doctrine & its purpose is to change human beings from "ignorant worldlings" into noble disciples resplendent with noble
wisdom. The change doesn't come about thru mere faith & devotion but by treading the Buddhist path, which transmutes our frailties into invincible strengths & our ignorance into knowledge.
The notion of acquired dignity is closely connected with the idea of autonomy. Autonomy means self-control & self-mastery, freedom from the sway of passion & prejudice, the ability to actively determine oneself.
To live with dignity means
to be one's own master: to conduct one's affairs on the
basis of one's own free choices instead of being pushed around by forces beyond one's control. The autonomous individual draws his or her strength from within, free from the dictates of craving & bias,
guided by a thirst for righteousness & an inner perception of truth.
The person who represents the apex of dignity for Buddhism is the arahant, the liberated one, who has reached the pinnacle of spiritual autonomy: release from the dictates of greed, hatred & delusion.
The very word arahant suggests this sense of dignity: the word means "worthy
one," one who deserves the offerings of gods & humans.
Although in our present condition we might still be far from the stature of an arahant, this doesn't mean we're utterly
lost, for the means of reaching the highest goal is already within our reach. The means is the Noble Eightfold Path with its
twin pillars of right view & right conduct. Right view is the first factor of the path & the guide for all the others.
To live with right view is to see that our decisions count, that our volitional actions have consequences that extend
beyond themselves & conduce to our long-term happiness or suffering. The active counterpart of right view is right conduct, action guided by the ideal of moral &
spiritual excellence. Right conduct in body, speech & mind brings to fulfillment the other 7 factors of the eightfold path, culminating in true knowledge & deliverance.
In today's hectic world humankind is veering recklessly in two destructive directions. One is the path of violent struggle
& confrontation, the other that of frivolous self-indulgence. Beneath their apparent contrasts, what unites these two extremes is a shared disregard for human dignity: the former violates the dignity of other people, the latter undermines one's own dignity.
The Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path is a middle way that avoids all harmful extremes. To follow this path not only brings a quiet dignity into one's own life but also answers the
cynicism of our age with a note of wholesome affirmation.
Buddhist
Publication Society Newsletter cover essay #38 (1st mailing, 1998) Copyright © 1998 Buddhist Publication Society -For free
distribution only
Toward
a Common Language on Human Dignity
William P Cheshire
Speaking from the White House on April 9, President Bush chose these words
to frame his statement in support of legislation to ban experiments in human cloning:
"As we seek to improve human life, we must always preserve human
dignity."
The noble aspiration to preserve human
dignity has broad appeal. And yet this language of consensus
is also a language of nuanced plurality. i.e., what the coalition Do No Harm means by "the essential dignity of every
human being," is altogether different from what's implied in the Oregonian political slogan, "death with dignity."
The latter places dignity within an extreme interpretation of individual autonomy, while the former imputes dignity to all people, including those too vulnerable to exercise autonomy. Whether to promote
death or protect life, both march beneath the banner of dignity, tugging it at times in opposite directions.
Contradictions in usage by no means invalidate all possible interpretations. Nevertheless, some have questioned whether
"human dignity," an emotionally-laden phrase used to dignify various political
causes, is sufficiently well-defined to serve as a useful term in bioethical discourse.
Its colloquial use is often vague. A more rigorous attempt at a precise definition might risk dividing public discourse
& dismantling consensus where unity is desirable.
It would hardly befit the dignity of human beings, however, to settle for a consensus that tolerates contradictions when
the basis in truth for a deeper, more satisfying consensus lies, for those who'll accept it, within reach.
Now that society has approached the brink of human cloning, the need for a valid understanding of human dignity is unprecedented. It's also urgent. Biotechnology has already begun to supply the
tools capable of altering the basic genetic structure & familial relationships of human beings. If human dignity is to be preserved, we must hold fast also to the language of human dignity.
What is human dignity? Is dignity an arbitrary cultural construction
conditioned by the times & pragmatically tied to preferences for this or that agenda? No, dignity touches
on something more profound. There really is such a thing as human dignity.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines "dignity" as "the quality of being worthy or honourable." Human dignity thus denotes that particular dignity which human
beings uniquely possess. It isn't that all human actions are morally praiseworthy, but humans are, by their nature, worthy of a special
level of respect fundamentally above that of nonhuman animals & beyond that of the most intelligent
computers.
At stake in defining human dignity isn't the question of when a human being acquires dignity but whether human beings have intrinsic
dignity. A frequent mistake is to equate dignity with certain functional capacities such as intelligence, abstract reason, language, creativity, ability to feel pain,
empathy, awareness of personal biography over time, health, or beauty. In contrast to abstract dignity these
capacities at first glance seem more clear in that they're visible, tangible & measurable.
Beware of substitutions. If a measurable attribute were to supplant the idea of dignity, which
human beings would no longer measure up to the preferred standard? If a quantifiable marker, then which men & women, whose
grandparents, whose children, would come up short?
Since functional capacities accrue with age & by degrees, many people possess them in slight degree & others may lose some of them altogether. A concept of human dignity contingent
on functional capacities is very attractive to proponents of utilitarian theory because from measurements come direct comparisons.
Human life, to be sure, doesn't belong on the balance scale with property.
The utilitarian calculus coldly authorizes violating human dignity
in cases where a greater good for the greater number is anticipated. Such thinking eventually calls into question the rights & worth of the most vulnerable members
of society. And all of us at one time or another are vulnerable & potentially eligible for exclusion.
Thinking in terms of disposable dignity is very near to imagining disposable people.
One feature that constitutes the most tangible limit of dignity is that one rightfully responds in moral outrage whenever that dignity in others is threatened or denied. Sadly, the capacity
for moral outrage is also subject to attenuation & distraction. The systematic designation of a class of living human nonpersons of unproven dignity would portend
a grave moral crisis.
Cloning, i.e., threatens human
dignity because it would instrumentalize & commodify
human beings, deny them individuality & treat them as products to be designed & manufactured according to another’s specifications.
Cloning for purposes of reproduction would confound natural familial relationships & their accompanying moral responsibility. Cloning for purposes of research would require the destruction of nascent human lives grown simply to become
the means to others’ ends.
Human dignity is at its core an ontological
reality irreducible to perceptual esthetic categories. The word "dignity" is thus appropriate to beings
who are substances & not mere collections of properties. Dignity bespeaks something inseparable
from human nature, something placed there, something shared by all people.
One comprehends dignity less thru reason & more thru intuition, in a way that's comprehensible to human reflection universally. No scientist or physician has ever observed human dignity; it's an inference. Forever
escaping the nets of scientific measurement, dignity
defies devaluation.
In the same way that human dignity precedes the actualization of important functional capacities, the writer
of Hebrews commented,
"By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen
were not made of things which are visible."
(Hebrews 11:3, NKJ).
For the Christian, the notion of human
dignity is rooted in the biblical text which records that
men & women are created in the image & likeness of God (Genesis 1:26, 9:6). This imago Dei is not attached to any
functional characteristics of humans but is simply identified with that which is human.
Invisible & indivisible, the special value in human dignity comes
thru God’s own vesting, for he has made human beings especially for fellowship with himself.
God supremely affirmed the dignity of human life by becoming in Jesus Christ a man & dwelling with us (Isaiah 7:14;
Luke 1:30-31, 41; John 1:14). Jesus, now resurrected, retains his humanity & calls us to lives in which our human dignity may be perfected in him.
Even though the authority of Holy Scripture isn't everywhere welcomed, the phrase "human dignity"
coincides with the biblical ideal of worthiness due respect & lays an ethical foundation for treating fellow human beings in a manner pleasing to God.
The words "human dignity" also provide a secularly accessible language on which a pluralistic
society can find common moral ground. This isn't an exclusively Christian ideal.
Elaborating on Genesis 1:26, Plaut’s Jewish commentary on the Torah explains that humanity’s likeness to
the Divine, "stresses the essential holiness & by implication, the dignity of all men, without any
distinctions."
Recognition of intrinsic human dignity extends, furthermore, beyond religious traditions. Cumulative human
experience having found dignity to be a valid moral principle, it's also a hallmark of civilization.
Article 1 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that, "All human beings are born free & equal in dignity & rights." Likewise, the principle of individual autonomy preeminent
in much bioethical discourse is grounded in the respect for persons that flows out of a robust appreciation of human dignity.
Although an explicit definition of human
dignity is seldom offered, its significance is assumed in
the practical out workings spelled out in the language of human rights & autonomy. These basic human rights make sense
only if moral right & wrong are grounded in transcendent relationships.
The founders of the American government recognized human dignity to be the basis of the rights & liberties due moral, rational beings.
i.e., the Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternal association founded by the officers of the American Revolution, in
1783 advanced the following "immutable" principle:
"An incessant attention
to preserve inviolate those exalted rights & liberties of human nature, for which they have fought & bled & without
which the high rank of a rational being is a curse instead of a blessing."
Human dignity deserves a place as part of
our common language only as long we appreciate that all people hold this
dignity in common. A pluralistic society will inevitably
hold this standard in tension with competing ideas about what constitutes human dignity.
That's why there's a continuing need for dynamic translation of the biblical principles underlying dignity into the common language. Successful translation also requires that Christians lead lives consistent with those principles.
Language can define human dignity but imperfectly. The most rigorous terminology can acknowledge it but can't explain its origin.
Vocabulary can address it but can't own it.
Words can comment upon it, note its triumphs & failures & gesturing thru metaphor point beyond themselves, but they can't lay hold of the thing itself which is
human dignity. Once all opinions have been voiced & doubt has exhausted its last breath, human dignity remains, authentic yet inexpressible, a wondrous unanalyzable mystery.
A suggested definition of human dignity is as follows: The exalted moral status which every being of human origin
uniquely possesses. Human dignity is a given reality, intrinsic to the human substance & not contingent upon any
functional capacities which vary in degree.
Evidence of this status may be found in such faculties as abstract reasoning, language, conscience & free will, which human beings have the capacity to develop & exercise unless limited by disease, coercion, or the will.
The possession of human dignity carries certain immutable moral obligations. These include, concerning the treatment of all other human beings, the duty to preserve life, liberty & the security of persons & concerning animals
& nature, responsibilities of stewardship. A Christian understanding of human dignity will add to this the obligation to worship & magnify the Lord God, whose mercy endures forever.
This article appeared in Volume 18:2 of Ethics
& Medicine.
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Dressing With Dignity by Colleen Hammond
Introduction & Sample Chapter One of her book
Introduction
My journey to modest fashions has been a very, very long one.
I fell away from the Catholic Faith in college, when I needed it the most. I was modeling & acting to put myself through college - not the most Christian of industries.
My plan was to go to medical school (my undergrad work was in chemistry & psychology), but
because of my modeling & acting background, I ended up working in television. I got a job doing the weather on The Weather
Channel, so my husband & I moved to Atlanta. My best friend at the time was the Promotional Director for MTV.
My return to the Faith is a long & tragic story, but when I did return, you wouldn’t have been able to tell I was Christian by how I was
dressed. I guess I thought real beauty was about how much of my form & body was exposed.
I abandoned my skyrocketing career the moment our first child was born. Due to a few disastrous events in our life that
followed shortly afterwards (you can hear the details on my reversion CD entitled, The
Making of a Beauty Queen), we found ourselves broke. And I mean penniless.
We only had one car, which my husband took to work, so I didn’t leave the house much. As a stay-at-home mother
of one child (& an infant at that!), I had a lot of spare time on my hands.
I walked to the library one day & fumbled across a marketing study that the advertising industry had done in the
1970's. They had used modern technology to track a man’s eyes when he looked at a woman wearing pants. The results of
the study so shocked, sickened & disgusted me that I haven’t worn pants in public since. (You can read more about the
study in Chapter Three.)
At the time, my closet was full of pants, blouses, sweat pants & t-shirts. I didn’t own a dress. This was
going to be a radical change for me! Because we didn’t have a dime to spare, I sewed myself one dress (it was too short) that I wore in public - that means to Mass, shopping, or to the park.
I started to read more about modesty, but the only books I could find weren't Catholic.
Somewhere, I got the idea that dressing modestly somehow meant plain, dreary, potato-sack type clothing. An Amish woman
had more panache compared to the styles I started to wear! My new clothing choices were quite a departure from the chic outfits
I used to wear when I was modeling & working in television.
Our marriage at the time was going through some changes & challenges, so I started reading books on marriage. Again, the only books I could find weren't Catholic. With no other option, I started
researching Catholic Church documents looking for references to marriage
& about that whole “you must obey your husband” thing.
My
first book manuscript, Love, Honor…and Obey? is about the Catholic Church’s teaching on wives being subject
to their husbands. I think that the Catholic teachings on the subject are much more beautiful & empowering for women than
any other opinion out there.
I
traveled the country interviewing people, doing conferences, re-building marriages & (I hoped)
reaching souls. So many years of research & study went into the manuscript & I was anxious to get the book finished, approved by theologians & on bookshelves.
But
in March of 2004 I was a guest on St. Joseph Radio Presents, a live call-in radio program heard on WEWN. God spoke
to me that day in a powerful way. Why should I be surprised? He usually has to whack me with a 2 by 4 to get me to grasp what He’s trying to
tell me. This situation was no different.
My
topic for the show was communication between men & women, building marriages & of course my upcoming book, Love,
Honor…and Obey?. But every single phone call for two solid hours was from parents asking how to get their daughters to dress in a modest & dignified manner.
I
still wasn’t hearing God’s message.
The
last caller said, “Although I’m interested in your topic, Colleen, what I really think God wants you to do right now is to write a book on modesty.”
It
hit me like a ton of bricks. Looking back over the previous year, I had been asked to do many mother / daughter fashion shows
around the country. Was teaching girls how to dress in a dignified manner & develop feminine mannerisms more important
right now than Love, Honor…and Obey?
I went to a local chapel to pray. Lying there on the pew was the book, Forty Dreams of St. John Bosco. I flipped
it open & it fell to page 34.
My eyes went directly to this passage:
“Don’t you know that where purity is concerned, non datur parvitas materiae - ‘there is no matter
that is not considered to be grave’?”
Grave?
Would that mean mortal?
I flipped
through the book some more & every page I went to had a passage to do with the importance of innocence & purity.
Suddenly
everything fell into place in my mind. If every sin against purity was grave & considering what I’ve seen girls
wearing to the store these days (not to mention the beach), it was clear to me that the
caller was right. What was needed right now was a book about how to dress in a dignified
manner.
I
went home & started researching. I was surprised at the massive amounts of material that was available. I was also shocked.
It was amazing to see the sudden & rapid decline in fashions over the past 100 years. But what is so beautiful is how
Heaven & Holy Mother Church have tried to warn us & keep us safe. The Church’s
role in warning us about declining fashions has - unfortunately for women -been the best-kept secret of the century.
Even
though there is a massive amount of information & material to share with you, my goal has been to keep the book short,
sweet & to the point. Personally, I don’t have time to read as much as I would like to. I have a pile of fabulous
looking books stacked next to my bed waiting for me to read them. I can only imagine that you're the same way.
I’ve
tried not to draw conclusions from the material presented. When I saw some of these things for the first time a few months
ago, I realized how counter-cultural this was going to be for most of us. I promise you that the information here will give
you something to think about & lots to pray about.
My
hope is that you'll read it, pray about it & do what you feel is the right thing for you & your family. May our Blessed
Mother guide you!
Within these pages, it's my prayer that you're able to find the information you need to help you in your desire to Dress with Dignity!
Chapter One: Out of Eden
“And they were both naked; to wit, Adam and his wife: and were not ashamed.”
(Gen. 2: 22-23, 25)
Naked & not ashamed? That’s pretty hard to imagine.
I’ll never forget the first time I read that passage from the Bible. I was a young girl growing up in Michigan & the thought of being half dressed in front of anyone horrified me. To this day the thought of being caught wearing a bathing suit in front of people gives me the willies.
And with the 84% of American women not being happy with their own bodies, I think it’s safe to say that nearly all women would be ashamed to be seen naked.
At least that’s how it was before that whole thing with the serpent & the fruit in the Garden of Eden.
Why weren’t Adam & Eve bothered by their nakedness?
Before Original Sin, Adam & Eve looked at each other with simple, pure, innocent love & with holy reverence. St. Thomas Aquinas says that our first parents were innocent & in a state of “original justice” & Dietrich von Hildebrand called it, “holy bashfulness”.
So, what does it mean that Adam & Eve “were innocent & in a state of original justice”? That our first parents were goofy simpletons walking around the Garden of Eden
with wide-eyed foolishness?
No way.
When Adam & Eve came from the hand of God, they were gifted with Sanctifying Grace, so their souls were beautiful
& pleasing to God.
Our first parents possessed all the virtues [i], all the gifts of the Holy Spirit [ii] & all the fruits of the Holy
Spirit [iii].
Adam was infused with supernatural & natural knowledge, which means he knew everything he needed to know about surviving on a daily basis & he knew what he needed to know about God.
Adam & Eve were not tempted & their bodies voluntarily cooperated with their will. They would never have said,
“I couldn’t help myself!”
They also wouldn’t experience sickness or death, because they were immortal in both soul & body.
In other words, our First Parents were in the state of grace, loaded with virtue, were pretty smart, they weren’t
tempted & they would never get sick or die. Must have been nice.
Life in the Garden of Eden before Original Sin was grand. It was…Paradise! Adam & Eve experienced no fear. No sadness. No regret. No mood swings. No discouragement. No temptation.
Matter of fact, St. Augustine said that Adam & Eve avoided sin, “without a struggle.” [iv] Imagine avoiding sin without a struggle. Wouldn’t that be fabulous?
Which brings us to the other wonderful quality they possessed: reverence.
Reverence is respect, admiration, worship, awe, veneration & amazement. It's showing consideration & appreciation for each other, for God’s creation & for God Himself.
Reverence is also a “holy fear” - a fear of not pleasing God. A fear of not being pleasing to God. Those who are reverent also hold back expressing their feelings & aren’t carried away by them.
Sadly, our society has lost the concept of reverence. Let me give you some examples.
Some people have absolutely no sense of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. After Mass, folks shout across the pews
in church to their buddies, seemingly oblivious to Our Lord present in the Tabernacle. They're insensitive to those people kneeling & praying their thanksgivings after Mass. A number of people don’t genuflect
when passing in front of the Tabernacle & some children aren’t even sure why we genuflect in the first place!
What about our loss of reverence for each other?
Whatever happened to simple manners & common courtesy? To the Ancient Greeks,
good manners & high morals were the same thing. While we may consider someone in our society ‘rude’, the Ancient
Greeks would have considered an impolite person immoral & filled with vice.
It’s rare these days to see men holding doors for women, or to hear ‘please’ & ‘thank you’.
Our family now lives in the South, where it’s still common to hear ‘sir’ & ‘ma’am’,
where men still hold doors for ladies & try not to use rough language when a lady is present. It’s refreshing. But
chivalry in our society has sure taken a beating.
What about how our elders are treated? There was a time when the older generation was treated with respect. Youth would approach their elders for advice, realizing that grandma & grandpa’s decades of life
experience had given them wisdom.
Instead, our culture treats seniors as people who are past their prime, as if they had an expiration date. They're put
in retirement or nursing homes & some family members consider euthanizing them. This lack of respect - irreverence, if you will - for our elders waltzed blatantly through my life few months ago.
I was coming home from the grocery store with my 4 children. As I drove past the entrance to the store on my way out
of the parking lot, I saw a frail, elderly woman leaning on the trunk of a car in the handicapped parking spot. Another woman,
whom I later found out was the frail woman’s older sister, was struggling to get a wheelchair out of the trunk of their
car.
I was about to get out of my car & help them, when I saw a middle-aged man approaching the store from the parking
lot. He was looking directly at the two elderly women & could easily see that the sister was still struggling to remove
the bulky wheelchair from her trunk. The man continued to look at the elderly women as he strode past them & right into
the grocery store.
I was dumbfounded!
At that moment, another man came out of the store. Surely he would help the two elderly women. Although he clearly saw
the feeble woman struggling with the wheelchair, he too walked past.
That was it. I wasn’t going to wait any longer.
With tears in my eyes, I climbed out of the car & helped the women. I easily lifted the wheelchair out of the trunk,
locked the wheels & helped the woman into the seat. Then I struggled to push her up the ramp into the store.
Have we really lost that much respect for our elders? Or is it because women have brushed off men’s offers to help with an, “I am woman,
hear me roar!” attitude? Have we conditioned chivalry out of our men? I think that’s part of it. But that topic could fill another book by itself. Let’s get back to reverence.
How about the lack of reverence for
human life? Slaughtering one’s child has become
a ‘choice’ instead of what it really is: murder. Yet it's this maternal function of a woman that is at the crux
of her mystique & glory & why the feminine gender deserves such reverence!
It’s an immense privilege for a woman to cooperate with God & her husband in the pro-creation of another human
person.
Gertrud von le Fort wrote in, The Eternal Woman, that, “To be a mother means to turn especially to the helpless, to incline lovingly & helpfully to every small & weak thing upon the earth.”[v] Deep down, I think that a woman who has aborted her child realizes that she has betrayed her sacred mission as a woman.
Whether she realizes it or not, when a woman freely chooses to abort her child, it deeply wounds her feminine nature. It spiritually destroys her sense of the sacredness of maternity. Realizing that, doesn’t it make sense why
it takes women so long to recover from an abortion?
We’ve seen irreverence displayed for our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Every day, we experience
a lack of respect & reverence for each other by an absence of manners. Our elders are no longer
respected. There's no regard for an innocent unborn child. And finally, what about the reverence due to our own bodies, that are temples of the Holy Spirit, created
to the image & likeness of God?
Turn on the television these days & matters of human intimacy are treated as sources of humor. We hear the marital embrace being bandied about in normal topics of conversation. We see sacred moments rendered as a joke
on the afternoon talk shows. And worst of all, Hollywood emphasizes marital intimacy in a crass manner in movies aimed at teenagers. My husband tells me that in the workplace, many people (men & women!) chat about the marital act in the same breath as the NFL, their jobs, or their
family vacation.
And I think it’s pretty obvious that the fashions of today are all geared toward destroying a woman’s sensitivity for her femininity. Dr. Alice von Hildebrand told me once that when
women no longer know how to blush, it's an indication that a society is on the verge of moral collapse. Sounds like we’re
in a lot of trouble!
Quite honestly, I think we women carry a heavy share of the guilt if we dress immodestly. If we don’t treat ourselves with respect, then how can we expect others to do so? By dressing immodestly, we betray our human & moral mission as a woman, which has been given to us by God.
I used to model & at times was asked to wear some pretty sleazy outfits. By the grace of God, I never had to actually
wear anything that I now look back & regret wearing. But supermodel Kim Alexis had a different experience.
In case you don’t know who she is, Kim Alexis appeared on more than 500 magazine covers including Glamour, Vogue
& Sports Illustrated. She was the Fashion Editor of "Good Morning America" for 3 years & hosted "Healthy Kids" &
"Ticket to Adventure with Kim Alexis" on cable TV.
In her 1998 book, A Model for a Better Future, Kim shares that as a supermodel, she was constantly asked to compromise
her moral standards. "There are pictures I look back on today & think, Oh, why did I let them talk me into that? I made some choices I'm not proud of.”
Kim also says in her book that many women are playing with fire in the way they dress.
“Dressing like a floozy tells the world, 'Look at me, want me, lust after me. I'm easy & you can have
me.' Displaying intimate parts of the body is a form of advertising for sex - so if you dress to attract sexual attention, you can hardly blame anyone else if that kind of attention comes your way. But dressing modestly tells the world, ‘I respect myself & I insist on being treated with respect.’ It's possible to be stylish & attractive without wearing something that is too short, low-cut, or
see-through."[vi]
That’s a supermodel’s experience. But in my life as a mother of 4 in North Texas, I've also observed that
when women are dressed in a feminine, modest & dignified manner, men will treat them with respect & hold them in high regard.
The other day, my husband was helping our sons cut out swords out of a slab of red oak. They needed a new blade for the saw they were using & asked me to run to the hardware store. I thought, “Should I change my clothes & fix up a bit?”
In the past, I've found that when I'm dressed in a neat, modest & feminine manner, men will hold doors for me, help
me find things in the store & offer to carry the items to the car for me. However, if I run to the store dressed in my
‘work clothes’, I am treated as ‘just another one of the guys’. No one holds the door for me. No one
helps me find what I need. No one offers to carry the wood to the car for me.
So, before going to get the saw blade, I put on a nicer dress, a quick coat of mascara & fixed my hair. Guess what?
The guy at the hardware store helped me find the saw blade. Not that I was fishing for his help or was trying to manipulate him, but more that it feels good to be able to help bring out the best in someone else. Isn’t it nice to
see men who still have a sense of chivalry & treat women with respect?
Why do you think men treat women differently when they're dressed femininely?
Because men are subconsciously very talented at reading a woman’s body language. If they see a woman who dresses
with dignity & who carries herself with grace & femininity,
they pick up on that. They take their cue & approach us with the respect, reverence & honor our gender deserves. It’s also more enjoyable for a man to chat with a woman & appreciate her intelligence when she is dressed tastefully, because he’s not feeling distracted by her body.
When a woman dresses with dignity, it appeals to a man’s chivalrous nature. Femininity touches a man’s heart & appeals to what is best in him. It makes him a gallant knight!
On the other hand, if a woman is dressed in an unfeminine manner, men are more likely to treat her like ‘one of
the guys’. If she's dressed immodestly, then they would view her as a sexual object & maybe
even treat her in a more crass manner. They certainly won’t treat her with respect & they may even verbally
harass her.
I would guess that most women would rather be treated with respect. Doesn’t it make sense to fix yourself up a bit before going out? And isn’t it also better for the
men to see women dressed in a feminine manner so that it brings out the best in them, too?
Education in modesty should begin right from birth. Plato wrote that one of the aims of education is to teach the child to hate what should be hated & to love what should be loved.
Let’s start teaching our children to understand & love the God given differences between males & females & to respect them. But how?
Little girls (& boys!) should be trained to respect their bodies. I agree with Alice von Hildebrand that, “if little girls are made aware of the great mystery that has been given to them, their purity would be guaranteed.”[vii]
We have a huge responsibility as parents. Pope Pius XII warned:
"O Christian mothers, if you knew what a future of anxieties & perils, of ill-guarded shame
you prepare for your sons & daughters, imprudently getting them accustomed to live scantily dressed & making them
lose the sense of modesty, you would be ashamed of yourselves & you would dread the harm you're making for yourselves, the harm which you're causing these
children, whom Heaven has entrusted to you to be brought up as Christians." [viii]
Pretty strong words. But he has a point. We should make the extra effort to clothe our children in a tasteful manner,
right from the start.
It’s really not that hard to find nice, feminine clothing for toddlers. It's only when they get into the “girl”
sizes that clothing gets risqué. But it’s worth the effort to look for feminine clothing since it’s important that our girls learn to respect & handle their bodies in a refined manner. In the appendices, I’ve listed places you can find
pretty, stylish & feminine clothing for yourself & your daughters.
St. Benedict understood deeply the effect that our body language has on our soul. He stressed
the importance of reverent body posture & found that it makes a difference whether one kneels or stands, whether one bows or not, whether
one sits up straight or slumps over. The more reverent the body posture, the more reverent the soul becomes.
The same is true of learning to be feminine. The more we practice, the more it becomes ingrained in our nature.
Feminine body posture for women includes learning to dress, walk & sit in a feminine manner. We need to make sure we don't cross our legs in a way that may be undignified or offensive. But I’ll go into that in more detail
in Chapter 5.
For now, we must re-learn
reverence (& teach it to our children!) as it has been eradicated from current generations
& our society. And it’s really not as tough as you might think.
[i] Faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude.
[i][ii]
Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.
[ii][iii]
Charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, long-suffering, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, and chastity.
[iii][iv]
De Civ. Dei xiv, 10
[iv][v]
Gertrud von le Fort, The Eternal Woman (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1962), p. 78
[v][vi]
Quoted from “Love Matters”, and available on the internet -click here to go there now
[vi][vii] Alice von Hildebrand, The Privilege of Being a Woman,
(Ann Arbor: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2002), p. 91
[vii][viii]
Pius XII to Catholic Young Women’s Groups of Italy
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