A Modest Step Back

My post below was probably a bit hard on the Old Oligarch's post. Curt Jester pointed out one of the good bits.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to wear a swimsuit with a skirt attached (yuck! yuck! ugly and stupid-looking, at least for women built like me!) or suffer guilt about exposing men to the lascivious allure of my elbows.

To respond to further comments in the blogosphere, there is absolutely nothing wrong or immodest about wearing a skirt, dressy sandals, and no hose in the summertime. At the funeral this weekend, I even saw my oldest great aunt, bastion of fashion conservatism and nitpickiness, wearing just an outfit. (Though I don't advise this for folks with more varicose veinage than my formidable great aunt.)

On the Meditate Among Yourselves front...remember the Lyke Wake Dirge?

If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
-- Every nighte and alle,
Sit thee down and put them on;
-- And Christe receive thy saule.

If hosen and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane
-- Every nighte and alle,
The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane;
-- And Christe receive thy saule.

If God dressed us in only our acts of charity, just how naked would we be? Can any of us claim modesty in that sense?