A Book on Your Head & Tabs on Your Dress Part I

This is Part I of a two-part series. Use what you learn in the series not only to make necessary changes in your own lives, but also to gain new ways of appreciating your mother this Sunday (Mother's Day). And, for the gentlemen readers: while you may not necessarily ponder on how to become a lady ;-), you can apply this information to the way you interact with and encourage all the ladies around you.

Is being a lady superficial? Who of you would deny that being a lady could include modest, feminine clothing; practical homemaking skills; and a nurturing, loving manner? If, however, you did none of this, could you still be a lady? In essence, am I a lady because of what I do or because of who I am?
Several weeks ago, I was skipping casually up our stairs when Papa handed me a book.
“Thanks!” I said lightheartedly. “I guess I need to work on my head posture, huh?” (This as I proceeded to place the book on my head in reference to the painstaking training from bygone eras.)
Papa surprised me with his serious response. “Instead of working on balancing books on your head, perhaps it would be better to work on graceful, soft steps.” After thanking him for his feedback, my brain went into overload. How many other “book balancing” activities do I subject myself to when it is not only superfluous, nonessential, and impractical, but also unnecessary from the viewpoint of my father and God? In contrast, how many things do I flippantly disregard—the way I walk is important?!—when both God and my parents value it? There are many things that my parents and I have discarded as “fluff” or flat-out wrong. The world sincerely calls wearing revealing clothing that shows off the feminine form “lady-like,” but a lady never sells herself on clearance. A more subtle conundrum is that of intelligence. Many say that a true woman is made of brains and proceed to fill her mind with knowledge while neglecting her soul. Although I believe that the mind is an important part of a lady (I am, after all, doing college online), I believe that the soul is even more important.
Perhaps it is easier to define a lady by what she is not than by what she is. The easiest way to go about this is to acknowledge that a lady is not a man. She should not look like a man nor should she act like a man. I experienced a graphic illustration of this recently when Lauren and I were out doing errands. Up until this point, I had managed to avoid all driving-related maladies (a speeding ticket, locking one’s keys in the car, accident, dead battery…), but the inevitable finally occurred: I locked my keys in the car. I didn’t realize it until we had shopped, checked out, and scampered through the rain, Lauren standing with her hand on the handle in her haste to escape the downpour falling on us at a slant from the wind. After the first dreadful realization, I grimly pulled up my coat sleeve (my nice wool coat sleeve, mind you) knelt on the parking lot (my nice brown skirt getting drenched and muddy, mind you) while I stuck my hand (my nice hand, mind you) up into the cavernous openings of the front of the van and endeavored to find THE KEY. The hide-away-key, you see, which Papa had once dutifully showed to me. It must have been many eons ago, though, because somehow, I just couldn’t quite remember where that elusive key was! So there I was, getting more drenched by the minute, my arm covered in some sort of thick, black, sticky substance, the origin of which I have no idea (you guys can define it, I’m sure, but for you girls, I would describe it as something akin to gritty molasses). All of a sudden, however, someone approached me. Someone who God had mysteriously endowed with an innate knowledge of not only the origin of gritty molasses, but also the exact location of all hide-away-keys: a man. Now, to all of you ladies who do have a keen knowledge of cars and hide-away keys, I apologize for perpetuating a stereotype. But I have to say that somehow, I just knew that this young man offering his help would know more than me about finding mysterious keys that have all-but drowned in gritty molasses (not hard to do, I have to admit). He actually LAID DOWN on the pavement (on top of his nice hoodie, mind you) to look up under the car and try to spot the key.

Stay tuned for Part II next Tuesday.