I'm almost out of time so here goes. I think that in the end, we need a radical re-definition of modesty for it to make any sense given what I said. Modesty is about leaving something on the table, leaving something in the foyer before we leave the house. It's about trust, an odd trust in the ever-watching God (or if you will, the universe) that the rest of the world will notice what he sees even if we do not parade it.

I have a funny mental picture of a handsome man or woman exiting the shower, their beauty in full display. And then somehow looking in the mirror, and smiling, and saying to no one in particular "You see this. But I believe that the right person will love less than my best, and then can receive my best." And that person doesn't put on all the makeup they could, doesn't put on their tightest shirt, leaves the cologne unopened, and walks out.

But don't you know that this is a competitive world? I need my best to compete! How can I leave something on the table? Don't I need to write my best words, my most romantic sayings? Don't I need to tell people what I have to offer? Look they won't know if I don't tell them! What if I have an ugly face but a beautiful body? Must I remain single for that, must I hide my curves or my abs? It's not fair, I say!

Yet...I think of Jesus, not letting the crowd make him King even if he deserved it. I think of the beauty of a person who knows that their gifts are indeed given to them, and to be treated with care. That there's a certain wonder when a person knows they deserve better, and yet settles for less. That I would rather have the full love of a few than the fickle admiration of many.

Somehow, modesty is about not needing to display everything at once. About cultivating an air of mystery, about bringing forward weaknesses as well as strengths. And if I may, there is a dream associated with modesty too...that as you go deeper in walking with the modest person, each day brings forth a little more beauty that you didn't see when you first met, and the end is better than the beginning. That is the modesty gamble, that is the modesty prayer, and it is a dream worth chasing, I think. It's not about being afraid of watchful eyes, or criticism, or feeling that society doesn't deserve your best. It's an intentional desire to be honest, to be real, and oddly...to be confident in who you are despite not being able to prove it as easily as you could.

Done. Now to read your comments. This was interesting.

A few posts ago, I talked about the woman in a white bikini who inspired such despair in my heart. But did I tell you the follow-up?

On her secretish blog, she talked specifically about wearing her white bikini. About her eating disorder issues and about her hatred of her body. And about how being able to wear that white bikini was a landmark moment to her. About how it meant that she accepted her body.

And I bowed my head and felt oddly sad for us all. To her, that bikini was a love letter to herself, an opportunity to say she finally loved herself. To me, that bikini was a symbol of all the beautiful things I will never have. Same thing, different message to us both. And that's why it is so difficult to really know what an immodest person means.

Her exhibitionism could be because of her daddy issues, being adopted and mistreated. His constant bragging is because he really doesn't communicate well and has a hard time expressing himself. The teen girl who wears a short skirt is merely trying to become a woman, to be like her mom and those ladies she sees in the magazines. She doesn't mean any harm to those watching. The man who writes all that sensual poetry may be trying to finally come to grip with his feelings he hid for years, and first he must write like this in order to reach his true heart, broken and hidden for too many years.

And so, here we are as an audience, confused as we watch, knowing that those glamor photographs she took might be the key to her feeling like a lovable woman, like someone who other people might care about. Then again: Booooooooobs. Is it really our fault for not deciphering the complexity of a sledgehammer? Maybe.

In my last blog I tackled how immodesty can hurt someone more deeply than you might think. But immodesty also has a very interesting effect that is part good and part bad. My immodesty has an interesting effect on you: how do you compete?

One option is to shame the immodest person. And quite honestly, I'm all for this in certain situations. Look, if a guy with perfect 6-pack abs decides to go shirtless at a random spring party, strategically I should mock him like crazy, because there's no way my topless self can compete. Don't hate the sarcastic playa yo, hate the game. I'll neg his biceps all day. Ok, that's enough slang, heh, but I'm always amused at the "Oh, why are you being so mean to the immodest person?" Look, they know the game, and so do I. When you play your game, others will play theirs too. So, um, Jamie's such a slut with that top, and this has nothing (everything) to do with the fact that she's a D student to your A average.

But player-hating is a mean counter strategy. Sometimes what cracks me up is when guys take a suck-up role to the alpha male in the group. Have you ever seen guys do this? They just become subservient to the top dog in the group and pick up the scraps and laughs he throws them. You have to pay attention to this, it shows you just how funny men are. We have such an amusing capacity to become mindless followers. Onward Brainless Soldiers!

There's one final choice, and it's what might be good about immodesty. There's nothing more beautiful than beating an immodest person with one arm behind your back. To win the girl without talking about your salary or wearing your tightest shirt. To win the boy without hinting that you really enjoy sex or while you're wearing a t-shirt and shorts rather than a tube top. If immodesty is so bad, then you should be able to win while still being a bit more modest, right? A good man or woman would appreciate it. And that's the debate right there: if immodesty is so bad, why do people still fall for it? Aren't we more observant, more intelligent than to fall into the first pair of breasts or the first convertible we see?

Of course, there's another danger to talk about, and that's being so modest that you self-sabotage. I'm not a doctor, I work in a hospital: She's not a model, she just "helps the photographer out." Modesty can become deliberate withholding, holding back what makes the world beautiful for your own selfish reasons or hurt feelings. So sometimes when an immodest person shows up, it forces some of us quieter folk to come out of our shells and show our own peacock feathers. (Pause to consider the mixed metaphor of peacock feathers coming out of a clam shell, and laugh with me. I told you this would be a one-hour blog blitz!). Sometimes we need to be reminded of our own powers, of our own gifts, and sometimes we hide ourselves under a bushel for selfish reasons. One might oddly see immodesty as doing society a service, of starting a game of show-and-tell that would not happen without the first person to step boldly forward.

More circular writing ahead!

Remember, modesty isn't just about a woman's body. It's about a man's words, your uncle's car and your sister's latest accomplishment. That said, why is not being modest a problem at all? If it's no problem at all, this isn't worth talking about at all, and I'm wasting my time. Let me throw down some text to tell you why it matters.

I don't know why it's stuck with me so long. About 5 years ago, a Xangan who was a Christian went to Puerto Rico on vacation. It was winter in Cleveland, the usual despairing grey skies supplemented by shivers and snowflakes. I was at my desk, and clicked on her post. In one photo, she was in a white bikini. The photo wasn't even that suggestive: top half only, I believe. But what was interesting was what the photo did to me.

I know what you're thinking "Oh, so you got turned on. I know the story. So what's wrong with that? It's not as if you were going to rape her or as if you went out and killed someone. Or are you blaming her?"

But it's not that simple. If immodesty was just about coveting, about desiring something that someone else has, then it's not that difficult. It's just about me and her and my ability to not want things that shouldn't be mine, or to want things that could be mine if I would put myself forward. She's either a possibility or not, right? So either I shouldn't be wanting her if I can't have her, or if I could have her, this should spur me to action as I see what she has to offer.

However, the problem is, it's not that simple. In that moment, I was seized by deep despair. Because none of us is just who we are: we are also symbols, thoughts, and ideas to those around us. The fact was, I despaired of ever having anything so lovely for myself. Her sweet self was womankind, Eden, and I was Adam, barred from the garden as surely as if a spinning flaming sword stood in my path. When there is no hope of fulfilling our desires, and then our dreams are thrust in our faces for a moment, there's a harm done much deeper than mere sexual excitement. It's not as simple as "Watch Ryan Gosling on the big screen then go home and have sex with your husband" when you have no husband and you don't think you'll have one for years. What happens in that immodest moment, in your mind, is darkness and despair, as you see that it seems so easy for everyone else to have what you want but you are shut out, estranged from beauty, separated from accomplishment.

The true harm of immodesty is that it takes something that should be beautiful and appreciated, and tells some of us "This is not for you. I will parade in front of you, I will tease you with my rhythm and rhyme or curves and care, but then I will go away and you will have nothing." To me, this is the true harm of pornography: it leaves its viewers with nothing to hold but faint memory, stolen through the lens of another.

Immodesty is not harm when it is something you can have, when the wife knows the husband who sent her sweet  words is coming home, when the man admires the dancers at his college but knows full well that his own girlfriend is more artful than them. The trouble with immodesty is that it takes dreaming and makes it nightmares.