Whenever I'm feeling low, I like to take a spin through the sprightly virtual world of Mormon Mommy Blogs, which are exactly what they sound like: blogs written by and for chirpy Mormon women.
Today I came upon a most wonderful chain of conversation, instigated by the post below. (LDS shorthand translation: RS=Relief Society (a Mormon women's organization), Gs=Garments (aka magic underpants).)
The RS Prez just called. It seems I’m a bit controversial since I wear slacks to church. “They” were wondering if it was an economic reason (could I not afford a skirt?). Nope. It had to do with shaving. In the colder “winter” months of California, I don’t shave my legs, I shave my goose bumps. It’s horrid. Now let’s fast-forward to the rest of the year when it’s hotter than blue blazes. Again, with the fat thing, my legs are a bit close together, nigh unseperable when it comes to walking. When wearing a skirt, the G’s roll up and it gets ugly. Painful rashes for days afterwards, so I continued to wear nice slacks to church. To make up for being skirt-less, I wear shirts that I don’t wear during the week and make sure to put on makeup so I look much better than I do on a day-to-day basis, thus putting forth an effort to still have a “Sunday dress” code....
No one likes chafing or nosy phone calls from semi-authority figures, and I have nothing but sympathy for the writer of the above paragraph, which is more than I can say for some of her Mormon-mommy commenters:
You could wear a skirt if it was important enough to you. Whether we agree with it or not, the way we dress does affect others. When we insist on our own dress code, it can be distracting for others. Since our main purpose for attending church is to worship God, we probably should minimize distractions. In my own experience, I’ve noticed that when women begin altering their dress code for Sunday meetings pretty soon other standards get altered. How we dress to worship the Lord is an outward expression of an inward commitment. My guess is that your RS President and bishop are concerned more about you than your dress code.
I know for absolute certainty, from personal experience, that if you’re willing to alter your standards on one thing, it follows as the night the day, you’ll be willing to alter your stance on other things.I truly do believe that our dress code (and there is one) is an outward expression of our respect for the Lord and His house.
I would put Neosporin on the parts that rub together to keep them from chafing. Also, I would pray considerably for help with it. Tell Him what happens to you and be willing to wear the skirt if He will help you with the problems associated with it. If none of that works, think of a couple of hours spent in a garden where the pain was so great that blood was sweat so we could make choices like this.
Thank you, internet, for being the ever-expanding Louvre of outsider art.
Comments (41) RSS