Modest Hospitality

An Essay On Modesty That's Not About Clothing

Leonardo da Vinci’s mural of the Last Supper

My husband and I were planning a workday in our new home, and I was worrying over all the finer details so as not to offend new friends and neighbors. I was planning to make a nice meal. Then it dawned on me that many of these friends wouldn’t expect a home-cooked meal. Some of the women showing up might even feel bad if I made anything nice instead of feeding them Little Dominoes on paper plates the way they might do it.

“Do you think it would be immodest for me to cook a decent meal for everyone instead of buying pizza?”

My husband agreed that it might be inappropriate for me to cook for everyone, that maybe we should just order pizza. But then I reminded him of the other guests we’d invite, and how it would look to them.

“— won’t look down upon me if I don’t cook, but I know that she would never consider ordering pizza. Because like me she’d feel she could do better for those who are sacrificing their time and effort to help.”

It felt like I was straddling two realities — there was the way I was brought up where the woman of the house cooks for those who come to help on workdays. And then there were those who seemed to interpret anything “nice” as an attempt to be “morally superior”. Writing this all down seems almost neurotic, except I’d already had past experiences with women that led me to believe they very well could feel bad by me doing “too much”.

I wasn’t sure what was the right thing to do. I was convinced that in order to be a good hostess and to be hospitable I should do what’s best for all my guests, some of whom were from my “world” and others of the secular world. I wanted to avoid seeming “showy” or “better than thou”. I didn’t want to be accused of creating a “comparison trap” that some of my friends might see as an impossible standard. But I also knew what I was capable of and how my other friends would know this, and how even though they wouldn’t judge me, they would see me as a tad lazy and unappreciative, because that’s how they would see themselves in a similar situation.

I felt like I was cornered into choosing between two virtues I prized: hospitality or modesty.

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When I first moved to Upstate New York with my husband we knew nobody in our small town. We took daily walks through the village, though, and always made certain to say “hello” to anyone we passed. After a month strangers — mostly Anabaptist folks — began to approach us and invite us to their functions. They could tell we weren’t like other young couples. There was no TV in our living room window. We dressed plainer. We didn’t carry smart phones. We walked a lot and were neither brazen nor shy. ‘

One of my favorite people to meet in those early days was a bold, outgoing Amish woman. I will call her Rebecca.

Rebecca defies all ideas of what it means to be Amish, and yet in my experience, she is the typical Amish woman. She is not demure, but she abides by the strictest traditional norms. She or a young girl, never her husband, care for the babies. And although she is around my age, she has a lot of them already. The most noticeable thing about her children is how hardworking they are even though they are so young, and how they always smile. Anytime I visit, her oldest son (he is only five) offers me a chair to sit on or a pastry to eat. He doesn’t understand much English, but hospitality is natural to him.

Rebecca is resourceful and hardworking. Because of her I was able to course raw milk and eggs and bulk ingredients such as locally grown and ground bread flour. She has turned her little farm into a layered business — portions of it are unlicensed and unpermitted and open only to trusted Christian and Amish families. The rest of it is “on the table”. Because she has made a success with their farm, her husband quit his job working cattle for the neighbors and now stays home to help with the gardens and greenhouses.

There will never be a feminist woman who can inspire me because I know women like Rebecca. These are the sorts of women who don’t bother in the “career vs family” question. They don’t contrive up ways to make the husband do half of the feeding or diaper changes. These are women who are strong of character. They have a head for numbers and home finances, and you’ll never see them grumbling about their children or husband. In fact, their husbands and children are instead praising the mother.

You’d think from this sketch that Rebecca is an extraordinary woman. That she is strong physically, or somehow more blessed than the average woman. But this is not true. Although Rebecca is resourceful and hardworking, she suffers from many ailments, and she struggles with her weight because of various health issues. She and her children are lactose intolerant which makes breastfeeding a difficulty, and her youngest baby is often colicky and gassy.

One day I was helping Rebecca in her garden and she told me, “If I wasn’t Amish, I’d be considered disabled.”

She shared this insight with me as if it were a joke. If she weren’t Amish, it’s true, she’d likely be obsessed with feminism, the “oppression” of women like herself, and her disabilities and sensitivities. But she wasn’t born in a secular, modern home. She is Amish. So instead of receiving a disability check, she is a mother of many happy children and she has made her home a place of profit and comfort.

Women like Rebecca inspire me not because they do so much so well, but because they do it all despite all odds. Yes, her success is admirable to me, but I am most inspired by her attitude and outlook on life.

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Modesty is the most misunderstood concept in modern Christianity. To many it simply means “don’t show off your value”.

Many brilliant writers and thinkers have wisely pointed out that modesty is choosing to not flaunt wealth as a source of worth, but dressing (and living) in a humble manner. However, many have distorted this view by claiming that if we reveal any goodness it is basically the same as flaunting wealth (because virtue is a type of wealth, so it should not be flaunted). Such people will argue that in this day and age it is often better to not dress or live in a humble manner because that could make you stand out, and standing out is immodest.

Such arguments defy the entire purpose of modesty because it excuses the pursuit of avarice and promiscuity, and posits that we ought to avoid beauty and holiness.

A lot of women are scared to do beautiful things, myself included, because we’ve been force-fed the horrid belief that it is bad to reveal our worth through any good works. We are hoodwinked to equate modesty with ugliness, and immodesty with “virtue signaling”.

We are told that a pair of pants are “more modest” because the pants don’t reveal the woman’s femininity in a way a dress might¹. Mainstream women are shamed into not choosing the more beautiful clothing because it is “indecent” to look different from a man. Such people will argue that it is more modest to not veil at church because it isn’t modest to do something that might make you experience “pride”². They will argue that it is more modest to not have a clean home or a home-cooked meal because those things could cause others feel bad, and it’s immodest to arouse feelings of inadequacy in others. It is immodest to make anyone ever feel inferior, and so we must do the most normal and unnoticeable thing.

We must be so ugly we become invisible in order to be modest, according to many modern interpretations of modesty.

I too have been sucked into this toxic mindset because it is prevalent in mainstream Christianity. Not even the secular, irreligious world scorns beauty and good deeds so thoroughly as evangelicals do.

This view of modesty schemes to debase virtue by claiming that virtue is wealth, so it ought to be hidden, completely ignoring Jesus’ words to “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works”

Those who hate beauty argue that it is too noticeable, and because ugliness is normal it is truly more modest and humble. But this is not modesty. Authentic modesty reveals the origins of Godly worth and value.

For this reason modesty will never be invisible or ugly, because it must always remain inspirational in order to pull others toward a deeper communion with God.

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In order to live a modest, hospitable lifestyle women must ignore all degrading labels such as “comparison traps”, “virtue signaling”, and “moral superiority”. These are words thrown at us to try to tear at any virtuous efforts. Instead we should focus on comparing ourselves to superior, virtuous women and aspiring to reach their level of maturity and beauty.

Sometimes I get distracted by the naysayers. I don’t want anyone to feel bad or worthless. However, because of women like Rebecca, I choose to serve my guests on glass dishes instead of paper, and I choose to put thought and effort into the food I offer them.

Modesty can’t be at odds with hospitality, beauty, or virtue.

Modesty compliments virtue when its light shines — so the world might know that good is derived from God rather than gold, and so they might understand the true shapes of the fruits of the spirit. And although we should never seek to flaunt ourselves, we will stand out as modest, Christians. It is inevitable in this immoral, ugly world.

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1. This is why it’s dangerous to separate beauty from modesty. You can’t have one without the other.

2. This would be like refusing to love your children because you don’t want to feel pride when you see them succeed, or refusing to do a good job because you don’t want to feel pride at a job well done, etc. Pride is a grave sin, but it’s foolish to think that we need to become immodest and ugly in order to avoid pride or vanity.