What is Modesty?

I'm not going to link to the stories about male BYUx students writing passive aggressive notes to females about how scantily they are dressed even when most of the time they are clearly not(and even if they are, it's none of the guys' business). We've heard the stories, and you can find them easily enough. I will, however, note that I have only heard about those things happening at BYUI and BYUU, not BYUH. Maybe it happens at BYUH, too, but my guess is that being in a warm climate with beaches and swimsuits abounding and many of the students working at the Polynesian Cultural Center (wearing native traditional dress) and/or being from the islands, the over-focus on modesty is less of an issue.

There are many other posts on this topic, but I'll just link to this one so you can get some context on the discussion surrounding modesty. On one side, you have people saying that women should cover up so as to help men have pure thoughts. On the other side, you have women saying they can wear whatever they want and no one should judge them for it. No one seems to be able to agree on what it means for a man to be modest, which multiplies the sexuality and sexism surrounding the term.

When it comes to modesty, I have to quote Inigo Montoya to both sides here.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

From True to the Faith:

Modesty is an attitude of propriety and decency in dress, grooming, language, and behavior. If we are modest, we do not draw undue attention to ourselves. Instead, we seek to “glorify God in [our] body, and in [our] spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:20; see also 1 Corinthians 6:19).

The section on modesty mentions sexuality but also tattoos, piercings, sloppy dressing, and language. There is so much more to modesty than how much skin someone is showing or the tightness of their clothes. The hyper-focus on women's clothing takes away from the greater message about us all being modest in all that we do and lets men off the hook completely.

Several of the priests in our ward have long hair. One in particular was being presented to the ward awhile ago when he turned 16. He's a high school football player. The Bishop made a joke about him cutting his hair after football season was over and Samson - the obvious connection being that he benefited from the extra strength when playing football. But the clueless look on his face made it obvious he didn't know who Samson was, so from the pulpit in front of everyone the Bishop tasked him with going home and reading the story. I think he was too clueless to even be embarrassed for being called out in front of the ward for not being familiar with one of the most well known bible stories. Returning to the hair - it grabbed attention away from what was happening, a young man advancing in the Aaronic Priesthood, and highlighted his lack of understanding in a somewhat awkward way. Going a level deeper, his casual approach to his appearance mirrored his casual approach to learning the gospel. His immodest hair (not sexual hair, but rather his attention-getting hair) is what made that point possible.

Just as his lack of modesty drew attention to himself in an unflattering way, and bikini-wearing women won't like this, so can women's swimsuit or other apparel choices draw attention to themselves in an unflattering way. Of course, a ridiculously large diamond ring sends a similar message, even though it is in no way sexual in nature. Women claim that they should be able to wear a certain cut of clothing or swimsuit because it's cute, comfortable, or functional, but I can't imagine a bikini being any of those three. A 2 carat diamond is certainly none of the three. A guy's pants precariously hanging off his butt is none of the three.

It is still not about what others think of you, though. Modesty is a reflection of the individual. That is where the point gets lost. We need to stop placing the blame for men's impure thoughts on women. Men will have impure thoughts no matter what women are wearing, and that is their load to carry. Just as the football playing priest's immodest hairstyle gave away his need to read his scriptures and pay better attention in Sunday School, a woman's choice to dress immodestly highlights something amiss in her priorities.

That said, I wrote a post awhile ago about how we should not judge others. If we do, that is our own fault (and a common one at that) that we need to deal with. President Uchtdorf must have read my post, because in the next conference, he gave us this instant classic:

This topic of judging others could actually be taught in a two-word sermon. When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following:

Stop it!

It’s that simple. We simply have to stop judging others and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of love for God and His children.

He followed that up by quoting a bumper sticker that read, "Don’t judge me because I sin differently than you."

Let us stop telling men they need to shave and cut their hair and pull up their pants. Let us stop telling women to cover up.

Instead, let us all consider our own behaviors and how we choose to present ourselves to others. Think about what message you are sending to others. The point here is that how others receive the message you are sending is not what we're talking about. It is about what message you are sending, regardless of how others interpret that message. Modesty is an attitude. What is your attitude? What is your intention? If you draw attention to yourself or something about you, why are you doing that? Are you glorifying God?

Answer those questions for yourself. Put your own house in order and stop judging others as they work on their own favorite sins.

I guess both sides have something to learn.

Judge Not

We were out of town visiting extended family for Christmas. We attended sacrament meeting in a ward where we knew a few people from having lived there over a decade ago. As you can guess, there was a mixture of a few people that we knew well, a few people we recognized but couldn't remember their names, some we weren't sure if they remembered us, and then plenty of new people.

While my wife was talking to one couple sitting right inside the chapel door, I was trying to get her to follow and get one of the few remaining soft benches before being relegated to the hard seats in the gym. I was holding the baby so I couldn't take off while she was still talking, since they were talking about the baby. We ended up sitting in the gym.

The part that was strange, however, wasn't the conversation with that couple. It also wasn't that we had to sit on hard chairs. I'm okay with the hard chairs, but it's simply easier to deal with kids in the confined space of a bench than in an open gym.

So where it got weird was the random people sitting next to the couple we were talking to. She's someone who we probably know but were having trouble placing. As we were showing off the baby to the couple we did know, the other lady out of nowhere starts commenting on the outfit the baby was dressed in. She was wearing a little Santa-esque outfit: satin red pants and matching flare waist top with a silver bow in the middle and silver shoes. She had a huge red bow on her head. To be fair, her car seat buckles probably covered up most of the bow on her top, the car seat head support may have partially blocked the huge bow (but no way it could have blocked all of it), she was wearing pants (at church, I know), and she has really short hair. To counter-counter-balance that, however, her carseat cover is very pink. So the lady we don't really remember and aren't talking to says something about "the things we do to our children" and then something about taking a picture of him and showing it to his fiance when he has one.

Of course we ignored and walked away and then stewed about it later. Him? How could she not see the huge bow (it has its own weather system) or the pink carseat cover? How dare she call our baby girl a boy? Even if we did dress our man-child in red satin and silver shoes, what business is it of yours?

Fast forward to after the sacrament. Several times during the talks and musical numbers, a teenage girl sitting in front of us, probably about 14 years old, leaves and comes back about 3 times. But it's not the fact that she can't sit in her seat for an hour that has me wondering; it was the length, or lack thereof, of her skirt. Her parents were turned around and looking at our new little one and commenting on how cute she was when she woke up and I picked her up during the sacrament, so obviously they have some sense of what's cute even if they don't have sense enough to comment on the cuteness until after the sacrament is over (or preferably the entire meeting). It all starts to come together as I begin judging them: talking during the sacrament, the father not wearing a white shirt, kids coming and going freely during the talks and music, daughter wearing inappropriate clothing...

Then it hit me. Judge not that ye be not judged. Just as I hadn't liked having a random sister judge what my daughter was wearing, I shouldn't be judging what that family was wearing or what their actions were during the meeting. I can think of all kinds of reasons that someone might wear slightly inappropriate clothing to church or have to get up and go several times during the meeting, and whether or not any of those applied was none of my business.

Of course, then I remembered Joseph Smith's correction. Judge not unrighteously. Maybe it is okay for me to judge; it was a very short skirt after all. But how do you know if you're judging righteously? As luck would have it, Elder Oaks gave a talk on this topic several years ago. He points out that there are two types of judgment: final judgment (which is reserved for God to make) and intermediate judgment (which we are commanded to make according to righteous principles). Of course he then gives us the righteous principles by which we may know if we are righteously judging:

• Refrain from declaring that a person has been assured of exaltation or from dismissing a person as being irrevocably bound for hellfire, since that is a final judgment.
  
• Judgment should be guided by the Spirit of the Lord, not by anger, revenge, jealousy, or self-interest (it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain...as the daylight is from the dark night...for behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil).
  
• Judgment must be within our stewardship.
  
• Refrain from judging until we have adequate knowledge of the facts (perhaps thou shalt say: the man has brought upon himself his misery...whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent).
  
• Whenever possible we will refrain from judging people and only judge situations.
  
• Forgiveness is a companion principle to the commandment that in final judgments we judge not and in intermediate judgments we judge righteously (forgive, and ye shall be forgiven).
  
• A final ingredient or principle of a righteous judgment is that it will apply righteous standards (with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again).

The easy part is I'm not the girl's father or YW leader, nor am I the family's Bishop or even home teacher. So, simply put, without going through all the other principles, it's not my stewardship, so it's none of my business.

Eagles and Driver Licenses

I can't imagine my boys not earning their Eagles or my daughters not earning their Personal Progress. I would like my boys to earn their Duty to God, although I'm not as worried about that.

I don't think it's appropriate to hold something like a child's driver license over earning such an award.

I like the idea of teaching our children correct principles, modeling those principles in our own lives, and then giving them enough rope to either be productive or hang themselves. Not literally. Obviously at some point you step in and take drastic steps to avoid major life changing issues.

Children who are rebellious, lazy, doing poorly in school (I'm thinking really poorly, not just like B average poorly, but to the extent where they are being irresponsible), bad drivers, or otherwise not deserving of a driver license should not receive their driver license. That's probably not the real list but rather one I just made up right now and am not going to think much about. The point is that each child is different, so when it becomes time that it is an issue, you work it out with each child individually.

I can see daughter #2 coming straight out and telling us she doesn't even want to drive even if deep down she is desperate to. If there is something she is worked up about related to some award she doesn't want to be pressured to get, everything else in the entire world, good or bad, can be stacked up on every side, and she will retain her laser focus on not wanting to earn the stupid award. She will even be convinced herself that she doesn't want to drive. Until she wants to, at which point she will forget that she just told us 5 minutes ago that she doesn't care if she can drive.

Daughter #1 will have her Personal Progress earned the first day it is possible to have it whether or not there is any external reward for it.

The kids will be expected to help shuttle their siblings around as part of earning the privilege of driving. My parents didn't make me pay for my portion of the car insurance, but I think it's a good idea for them to understand at a deeper level that the cost of a vehicle is more than just the gas you put into it. Better grades and no tickets means lower insurance costs. You have to find a job and balance your time wisely in order to keep your grades up and earn the money you need and still participate in family and school activities.

I want my children to be responsible. If they are, they will probably earn their oh-so-important awards anyway just because they are responsible. If they are not responsible, not earning their awards may be a sign of that. They may also be very responsible but simply have to make decisions about what is important to them and the Eagle or Personal Progress may not be that. With the kids in my troop, I can tell within a few weeks of working with them whether or not they will get their Eagle. I think I know my kids a lot better than that so there should be no surprise to anyone if they earn it or not.

Not if I can help it

Last year, the teachers and priests in our ward had been planning a cooking/recipe/food night, where people would bring food, share recipes, and most importantly, eat. I happened to be out in the hall when someone was talking about it, and I mentioned that we'd be happy to join in with them as well. The Bishop was close by and stated something about how they didn't think to invite us, since we'd probably be working on a merit badge that night. My reply was that we would be working on a merit badge that night...Cooking, and that we'd be glad to join them.

How quickly some people forget that there are over 120 merit badges out there. When in doubt, I always assume that no matter the activity someone wants to do, there is likely a merit badge for it. Studying history, surfing the Internet, fixing cars, starting a business, attending a concert, wakeboarding, going to the dentist, and giving your dog a bath are all disparate activities with a common link in that they can all be done as part of various merit badges. Even the ubiquitous standby basketball can be justified within the realm of the Sports merit badge.

For the last couple years, we've had a combined activity where each class makes a church-related video that we watch all together. The guys who had driven the activity in the past have now graduated, but as I had hoped, it was on the table again this year. I am happy to spend several weeks putting our video together all in the name of the Cinematography merit badge, since it's something that I've enjoyed learning more about.

We spent this last week brainstorming, coming up with several funny and interesting ideas about costumes, storylines, and soundtracks for our feature. Then a few days later, we heard the bad news that the activity was a no-go. Between lack of interest from the teachers and priests and outright rebellion from the laurels, not to mention a leaf raking service project we were asked to do, the video night was doomed.

Unfortunately for everybody else, when the deacons and I get excited about something, we find a way to do it anyway. So the plan is to let them cancel/postpone the activity in favor of raking leaves, and wait a couple months until it is our turn to be in charge of the combined activity. Now instead of having everyone film the movies beforehand, the filming will be the activity.

We'll give everyone a video camera, a random bucket of props, a scripture story, and 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, we get back together to watch the videos and have some popcorn. The benefit this way is that the playing field is leveled, given the limits on time, equipment, and storyline.

Of course, instead of spending just two or three weeks on our video like we originally would have, we will now spend two or three months covertly putting it together. I hope that the boys will really come up with something great to tie everyone else's scripture stories together. Part of the motivation, besides just the fun of it, will come from convincing the boys that we're doing this activity to stick it to the people who wanted to cancel it. It often takes some kind of competition to motivate the boys to really be creative and stay focused on something.

I know that as much as we were looking forward to the activity before, my ASM and I are really getting excited now.

A truck and a smile

My last post was supposed to be this post, but it kind of flowed out different than I expected it to. The one thing this post and my last one will have in common is a little bit of bagging on Young Women leaders.

As I mentioned before, the ladies are probably just a little bit better at making plans, having meetings to talk about their plans, and spending way too much time making curly little papers handouts to let everyone know what their plans are. While they do get a reputation of having their act together, they are generally less trained than the men and thus occasionally do some weird things. Maybe they don't need as much training, but the BSA has a lot of training available. Depending on the leadership in a ward or stake, when callings are extended to BSA positions, a new leader isn't necessarily always told that they need to attend training. Eventually most of us figure it out and do get at least minimal training. I wonder how much training the church would provide the men if the BSA didn't do so much for them.

One of the first and most common things that is stressed in training is safety. They drill many rules into your head. The biggest one of these is that you have to have at least two leaders and two boys to have an activity as part of the youth protection rules. A side note on this, a former assistant of mine, who was notorious for getting worked up if we had too many activities and campouts, went to one of the basic trainings. He got back, and I was excited to hear what he learned, since I've learned something important in all the training I've participated in. I was disappointed that instead of some great nugget of wisdom that could help us work better together, he learned that if you don't have at least two leaders, you should cancel an activity. The only thing he learned was a way to get out of an activity.

Anyway, after youth protection, one of the other most important and well-known rules is to never let scouts ride in the back of a truck or trailer. Everyone has to be in a seatbelt, inside the vehicle. You hear it all the time. I'm pretty sure it's on tour permit paperwork, for those of us who actually fill them out. You can't be a scout leader without knowing that you never put a scout in the back of your truck.

So the combined activity last week was a game of The Fugitive. Basically, the youth all had to get from a certain location a few blocks from the church to a park a few blocks on the other side of the church. The leaders had to catch them before they got to the park. I received a call from one of the young women in charge asking if I could bring my truck. What I understood is that I would have a bucket of water in the back that the leaders could use to refill their water guns, which they would use to shoot the fugitives they found.

When they started explaining all the rules, it was actually much different. Four of us, including myself, had trucks, and we were to drive around and shoot with water guns or yell the names of the youth we saw and then put them in the back of our trucks. They would then help us find more fugitives. Yikes. All the alarm bells started going off. The ladies were all calmly smiling and thinking about how fun the activity was going to be that they had put together. The men were nervously looking back and forth at each other, wondering if this was really happening. Were we actually going to have kids ride in the back of our trucks out in plain sight at an official activity? Was this approved by anyone? Did it need to be? Could it be? Every training we have ever had has always included 'no kids in the back of a truck'. I think we should have chased the youth on bikes or on foot, but it wasn't my activity.

The Bishop was there and didn't say anything, although he was noticeably uncomfortable. Since he didn't stop it, we proceeded. The activity ended up being fun, and no one was injured. At the end, I jokingly thanked the Bishop for approving such a wonderful activity. He just stood there with a knowing smile on his face, saying nothing. Yet at the same time, he said everything that needed to be said.

Failing to plan is planning to fail

People often think of Young Women leaders as having everything planned out and running perfectly, at least compared to Young Men and Scouting leaders. I would have to do a survey of some kind to tell for sure, but I'd almost guess the ladies would edge out the men on this one. I think they like sitting around talking more than the men do, so they have more meetings.

I don't always have everything planned out myself, but many times I'll have three to six months planned out. When I've planned out a whole years' worth of weekly activities, the plans change so much after a few months that it's not really worth going out that far. One of the biggest problems actually comes when you do plan way in advance and the Young Women come up with last minute things that throw your plans off. It always seems that when they are in charge of the combined activity, it's moved to a different week than normal, just because they can move it.

One Tuesday night a Young Women's leader made a comment about me not having a calendar when I mentioned that I didn't know a certain activity was coming up. I said that I did indeed have a calendar. She asked if it had anything on it. I happened to have a copy of it and showed her six months' worth of activities all listed out. She had no response to that.

So we've been struggling along a little the last few months, having finished our old calendar and not having made a new one. We finally have a solid three months planned out, and it feels so good. It really doesn't take too long to put together. I highly recommend it.

In my old ward, we would have all the boys get together and have an overnighter to plan for the coming year. We would meet all together to talk about combined things, then break out into our three classes to plan class activities and talk about summer camp ideas, and then get back together to go over what we came up with. We would play games every half an hour or so to keep everyone interested. It was great, because the boys were involved in choosing the activities and we coordinated with each other.

I haven't done as well at involving the boys in the planning in my current ward, because they're more ADHD in this ward than my last one. I mean, I've tried, but they end up just running around, not paying attention. One of these days, one of them will understand that when I ask them what they want to do, I really want them to tell me.